Shakeeb Kabir
The sporting industry generates billions of dollars each week. There are loads of people who make a good honest living from the proceeds of sport. In fact if sport had to vanish from the landscape then millions of people will be made redundant and in desperate trouble. It is for this reason vital to eliminate anything that threatens the veracity of sport.
There are regrettably those wicked characters those employ despicable ways to leverage ill-gotten monetary gains from the credulous public by persuading sportsmen and administrators to become complicit in match-fixing. They exploit the entice of riches to entangle their victims. While it is more or less impracticable to moderate just how far this cancer has stretched, it is almost definitely a far bigger dilemma than we foresee. One thing is clear, they are inflicting severe damage to the sporting industry.
Match fixing is the act of staging a spirited event, generally in organized sports, with a fixed conclusion. Often linked with betting, both legal and illegal, match fixing is usually illegal and those caught can be criminally prosecuted. Some fixes occur for other reasons, though, such as when players or teams deliberately hold down a score in sports where aggregate scores influences seeding or tie-breaks. In sports where a league’s end-of-season standing determines the order of making draft picks before the next season, with the team finishing last getting the first draft pick, it’s been alleged that some players have caused their teams to lose to enhance those chances.
Match fixing can take many different forms. In boxing, for instance, the only outcome that can be fixed is the triumph itself, and the losing fighter must be an accomplice in the fix, agreeing to pretend being knocked out, or “take a dive,” often in a particular round. Nearly all cases of fixed boxing matches have been initiated by gambling interests, which have been instrumental in fixing matches in other sports as well. Horse racing is particularly susceptible to fixing because gambling on horse races is officially permitted. If the jockeys riding horses favoured to win a race can be persuaded to hold back their mounts, even slightly, it may be enough to let a long shot win, enriching those gamblers who bet on the long shot. Horse racing venues and racing associations constantly monitor videotapes of races to detect any indication that a jockey isn’t calling for his mount’s best performance. In many cases, however, it’s unfeasible to prove that a horse race was fixed.
In additional to the match fixing that is committed by players, coaches and/or team officials, it is not unheard of to have outcomes manipulated by fraudulent referees. Since 2004, separate scandals have erupted in famous sports leagues in Portugal, Germany (Bundesliga scandal), Brazil (Brazilian football match-fixing scandal) and the United States all of which concerned referees who fixed matches for gamblers. Many sports writers have speculated that in leagues with high player salaries, it is far more likely for a referee to become corrupt since their pay in such competitions is usually much less than that of the players.
Match fixing does not essentially involve intentionally losing a match. Occasionally, teams have been accused of purposely playing to a draw or a fixed score where this ensures some mutual advantage (e.g., both teams advancing to the next stage of a competition). One of the earliest examples of this sort of match fixing in the modern period occurred in 1898 when Stoke City and Burnley intentionally drew in that year’s final “test match” so as to ensure they were both in the First Division the next season. In response, the Football League expanded the divisions to 18 teams that year, thus permitting the intended victims of the fix (Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers) to remain in the First Division. The “test match” system was discarded and replaced with automatic relegation.
Match fixing has detrimental sports for more than half a century and it has been found more or less in every sport and sports will begin to lose its amazing fan following if this dilemma does not come to an end.