May 18, 2006

CHEATING IS AS MUCH A PART OF SPORTING HISTORY AS WINNING AND LOSING 

      The furor that has arisen from the corruption scandal that has rocked Italian soccer and, to a larger extent, world sport, should not have come with as much shock and surprise as it has evoked.  While competitive sports typically bring out the best in individuals it also brings out the worst, and when millions, if not billions, of dollars are at stake corruption is likely to bleed into the heart of any sport.  Each professional league across the world, and most amateur organizations, has had to deal, at one time or another, with a scandal relating to some form of cheating.  To think otherwise would be at the same time naïve and idiotic.

       Granted, the scandal that is shaking the foundation of the soccer world is monstrous.  Game fixing, intimidation, bribery, coercion, official manipulation, player manipulation…these are elements that have infiltrated the Italian soccer federation and drive to the core of its sport.  Each and every result in the league’s recent past has now been called into question…championships are beyond being tarnished, they are in serious danger of being reversed.  The Juventus club could be demoted from the country’s major league.  The Italians are now an embarrassment to the world’s sporting body.  But, in reality, they are just the most recent embarrassment and should not be held up as solo violators in the history of cheating.

       Game fixing has long been the bane of sports associations since without honest results sport cannot exist.  It is the main reason why no major North American sports league has awarded a franchise to the U.S. capital for gambling Las Vegas.  There are too many possibilities for corruption.  Baseball is dealing with its own corruptive element—the steroid issue—and this is merely the latest in a long string of scandals (the biggest likely being the 1919 Black Sox scandal).  Hockey, at this time, is dealing with its own gambling issue.  Rick Tocchet, at the time the assistant coach for the Phoenix Coyotes, was recently indicted in a gambling racket in association with underworld characters based out of New Jersey.  The U.S. Olympic Organization is finally dealing with the drug issues that plagued its organization for years while the entire Olympic movement is constantly on alert for athletes using performance-enhancing drugs.  U.S. college basketball is constantly aware of the possibility of point shaving in its games, and the NFL, where the gambling ring (possibly alongside boxing) is likely the largest, watches for steroid abuse and gambling associations among its players. 

      With the amount of money presently being earned by professional athletes the likelihood that games could be fixed is slim, however if an athlete has a gambling problem and has accumulated a serious debt, then he/she can be used to sway the outcome of games to benefit that athlete’s debtors.  When Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and John Daly can admit to having lost millions in gambling debts the antennae for all sports organizations have to rise up.  The question that follows…how many other athletes, those that do not now or ever will publicly acknowledge a gambling problem, have accumulated serious debts that could allow them to be manipulated by their debtors?  Young athletes, with millions of dollars suddenly at their disposal, can, if they fall into the wrong crowd, not only have their funds siphoned out but also be forced or frightened into carrying out orders by swindlers.

       The Italian soccer scandal may be greater than any single gambling or drug issue facing all other sports since it may have to face the fact that its corruption could reach deep into the very foundation of its sport.  But since winning and success always beget big money is it a surprise that corruption of such monstrous proportions takes place?  Perhaps the question should be—is it happening more often and we are simply not aware of it?