Match fixing and sports corruption
The sports industry generates billions of dollars every week. There are many people who earn an honest living from the benefits of sport. In fact, if sport were to disappear from the picture, millions of people would be unemployed and in desperate trouble. Therefore, it is essential to eradicate everything that threatens the integrity of sport. Unfortunately, there are those wicked characters who employ nefarious methods to seize the ill-gotten financial gains of the unsuspecting public by persuading athletes and administrators to become complicit in match-fixing and point-fixing. They use the lure of money to ensnare their victims, athletes and administrators alike, using sports betting outlets as their playgrounds. While it is almost impossible to judge how far this cancer has spread, it is almost certainly a much bigger problem than we anticipate. One thing is clear, they are causing irreparable damage to the sports industry.
There are currently two high-profile cases of match-fixing circulating.
The first case it is the alleged arrangement of points by four Pakistani bowlers who were required not to throw balls in predetermined overs for substantial sums of money in their matches against England. The bowlers withdrew from the tour. The investigation is ongoing and has soured relations between England and Pakistan, resulting in Pakistan chief Ijaz Butt criticizing Andrew Strauss’s men as match-fixers on the grounds that England was paid to lose the third One-day international match at the Oval, which Pakistan won by 23 runs. Butt said: “There is talk loud and clear in the bookies circle that some English players have been paid huge amounts of money to lose the match.” No wonder there is a total collapse on the English side. We won the game and we are under suspicion. England lost, their players should be investigated.
The second case Match-fixing involves three-time world champion and current No. 1 billiard player John Higgins. In May, the World News alleged that Wishaw-born Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney had agreed to fix frames at a World Series of Snooker event in Ukraine for £ 261,000. I am pleased to report that Higgins has been acquitted of the match-fixing charges against him and will be able to resume his billiards career in November. However, he was imposed a six-month ban and fined £ 75,000 on the lesser charges of violating the rules by discussing gambling and failing to report an approach by a party attempting to instigate corruption in the game. He was also ordered to pay £ 10,000 in costs.
There is also the ongoing case of alleged match-fixing during Steven Maguire’s match against Jamie Burnett at the UK Championship in Telford on December 15.
Match fixing or point fixing is a scourge that has tainted the sport for many years. The first major scandal to hit the cricket world was the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal in India more than a decade ago. Hansie admitted to fixing the venue, but never pitching a match, which seems to indicate that the players feel that the fixing of the venue is not as serious as pitching a full match and are therefore more open to suggestions of this nature. . This is absolutely naive and certainly not well thought out, because these actions have the same dire ramifications.
It automatically leads one to reflect on how endemic these surreptitious deals really are. How deep and wide have the tentacles of corruption crept into sport?
How many sports codes have been affected or are affected by corruption? Given that sports betting is such a massive industry, it is difficult to see someone (especially the big spinners) escaping the clutches of corrupt operators.
Could this phenomenon be manipulated to the point that an athlete can buy their way up to number one, or worse, a country pays to rise to the top of the rankings in a particular sport?
read more