Restoring Trust in Sport

Corruption Cases and Solutions

Catherine Ordway

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367473068
• eBook ISBN: 9781000375572
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Medien- & Unterhaltungsrecht

In this solutions-focused collection of sport corruption case studies, leading researchers consider how to re-establish trust both within sports organisations and in the wider sporting public. Inspired by the idea of 'moral repair', the book examines significant corruption cases and the measures taken to reduce further harm or risk of recurrence.

The book has an international scope, including case study material from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and covers important contemporary issues including whistleblowing, bribery, match-fixing, gambling, bidding for major events, and good governance. It examines the loss of trust at both national and international levels. Drawing on cutting-edge research, the book includes both on-field and off-field examples, from Olympic, non-Olympic, professional and amateur sports, as well as diverse academic and practitioner perspectives. Offering an important contribution to current debates and a source of reflection on best professional practice, Restoring Trust in Sport helps us to better understand why corruption happens in sport and how it can and should be addressed.

This is invaluable reading for all advanced students, researchers, managers and policy makers with an interest in integrity in sport, sport ethics, sport management, sport governance, sports law, and a useful reference for anybody working in criminology, business and management, law, sociology or political science.

1 Restoring trust in sport

Corruption cases and solutions

Catherine Ordway and Richard Lucas

In 2013, then UEFA (European football) General Secretary, now international President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, referred to match-fixing as a ‘cancer’ which threatens football’s integrity (Chaplin, 2013). Fast-forward to 2020 when this book is being drafted during the COVID-19 lockdown, it is meaningful to refer to the challenge of ‘corruption in sport’ as an umbrella term, which match-fixing is a part, as a ‘pandemic’ (Porta, 2014, p. 179). The medical metaphor is appropriate: corruption can be regarded as an infectious disease that crosses international borders and is present in every nation and every sport. How to tackle corruption in sport then is a ‘wicked’ challenge in that it is both an ‘unresolved societal issue’ and ‘no discipline alone can satisfactorily resolve it’ (Viret, 2019, p. 3). While most of the media and academic writing is about ‘integrity in sport’, no one has adequately defined what that means. This book then focuses on trust, a topic that is more closely impacted by corruption than integrity. The fact that trust is a casualty of corruption is less spoken and written about, particularly in the sport space, and so warrants greater attention.

Groundwork

The underlying driver of this book is that it should be focused on solving the threats challenging sport. While some segments of the sport ecosystem are undoubtedly business-centred, corrupt practices demean the fundamental reasons that people engage in sport: fun, friendship, health, skills development, teamwork, a sense of achievement and a host of other reasons. At its heart, corrupt leadership steals not just the money and power in sport, but undermines those values, and creates an environment of fear and distrust.

While this book is about how the loss of trust can be regained, it is important to demonstrate that the loss of trust can come from corruption and that it is ubiquitous: every sport, everywhere. To do this, chapter authors were engaged from a range of countries with an emphasis on diversity in the researchers, and the case studies, by gender, sport, culture, discipline and age. This book showcases best practice examples from around the world which can, in turn, be adapted to suit the different sports and regions where they are played. Featuring 13 women and 11 men, the contributing authors from across the globe write about sports as diverse as biathlon, sumo, rugby league, horse racing, road cycling, golf, tennis, ice hockey and, of course, the world game, football. These sports are represented in case studies from eight countries: South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Nigeria, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia. This is through the eyes of five professions: sport administrators, lawyers, journalists, policymakers, and law enforcement officers working together with academic scholars from nine broad disciplines: business, criminology, economics, ethics, law, political science, psychology, sociology and sport management. Truly interdisciplinary with a world view!

Transdisciplinary approach

This book has taken on the ‘transdisciplinarity’ approach advocated by Marjolaine Viret: ‘where the emphasis is on policy-oriented work that involves practitioners and stakeholders of the community in the process (as opposed to academic experts only)’ (2019, p. 3). Viret has looked at applying interdisciplinary tools to improve anti-doping efforts (Viret, 2019), while this book more comprehensively situates doping within a broader framework of corruption. It is hoped that the goal-oriented approach of writing word-limited chapters gave the contributing authors the opportunity to both ‘introspectively’ consider the ‘positions and implicit biases’ of their own disciplines, and to ‘integrate’ a new, melded understanding into practical, and ideally, unique, solutions (Viret, 2019 pp. 4–5). The contributing authors were challenged to identify a case study(s) that most usefully demonstrated the type of corruption chosen and the solution recommended. The brief then for each of the chapter teams was to structure the case study along the lines of:

• What was the wrongdoing?
• How did that impact on trust?
• What was the response from the responsible authority/ sport organisation in attempting to ‘restore trust’?
• Did it go far enough? Are there other recommendations going forward?

The brief to each chapter author(s) was to focus on a particular sport and a documented example of corruption through a case study, to arrive at a unique solution for regaining trust.

Corruption

The ‘Overview of corruption in sport around the world’ following (Chapter 2 in this volume) by our University of Lausanne colleagues, Caneppele, Cinaglia and Langlois, sets the scene and outlines the frequency and extent of corruption (as well as the challenge of determining whether corruption has occurred). For the purposes of this book, ‘Corruption’, as Miller (2018) writes; ‘is exemplified by a very wide and diverse array of phenomena …’ (Miller, 2018, p. 4) including ‘… bribery, nepotism, false testimony, cheating, abuse of authority and so on’ (Miller, 2018, p. 40). Miller goes on to say that corruption: ‘involves the despoiling of the moral character of persons and … role occupants qua institutional role occupants’ (Miller, 2018, p. 7).

This overview then provides a snapshot of corruption cases and serves to set the scene relating to the types and prevalence of sports corruption worldwide for the remainder of the book. It outlines the results of a Database of Corruption Cases in Sport (DACCS) research project. This project has been collecting and analysing information since 2017, and involves:

• Collection: collecting cases of corruption in sport reported by the media;
• Identification: classifying the main characteristics of corrupt behaviour; and
• Analysis: analysing the responses by sport institutions, sport justice and criminal justice systems.

This chapter provides an overview of 230 cases of corruption in sport around the world that were reported in open source media in 2016 and 2017. The DACCS results show that corrupt behaviour exists in many countries and that sport, as well as public institutions, are active in countering corrupt conduct.

Each chapter thereafter focuses on publicly reported case studies involving an instance of corruption, defined in line with either Miller’s definition above, or the sport-specific definition of ‘corruption’ proposed by Masters and Graycar: ‘the deviation from public expectations that sports will be played and administered in an honest manner’ (Masters & Graycar, 2015, p. 57). This book distinguishes between ‘on-field’ and ‘off-field’ corruption. On-field corruption has been considered in sports ranging from cycling and golf to football and tennis. Off-field corruption has been defined using the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) (UN, 2005). The UNCAC does not provide a legal definition of ‘corruption’, but in this spirit, and in accordance with the 10th Principle of the UN Global Compact (2004), namely that: ‘Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery’, contributing authors were also encouraged to choose from case studies examining sports organisations, athletes, coaches and administrators involved (as the perpetrator and/or victim) in extortion and bribery associated with event hosting rights, in relation to player selection or transfers, fraud and misappropriation of membership organisation funds, ‘pork barrelling’, nepotism, ticketing and procurement impropriety, and/or poor accountability and governance.

All of this should seem very familiar: all, and more, of these corrupt behaviours have been exhibited across many sports and at all levels. These examples involve individuals as athletes, officials, coaches, fans, administrators, sponsors and commentators. The essence of corruption lies in moral failure. Moral failure always results in a loss of trust.

Trust

Trust is important, but it can also be dangerous. With trust comes acceptance and vulnerability. If trusted, a person can inflict more harm than if someone is kept at a distance, and treated with caution or distrust. That is why betraying trust is so devastating. Trust is important because it allows us to form relationships with people and to depend on them (McLeod, 2015, p. 1). In the case of organisations, rather than individuals, as set out in Chapter 5 by Jamieson and Ordway, trust creates the environment for a Social Licence to Operate.

It has long been recognised that betraying a person’s trust is the worst thing one can do. In Canto XXXIV of the Divine Comedy, Dante describes in graphic detail that the greatest punishment (in the 4th Round of the Ninth circle of Hell) is reserved for those who have betrayed: ‘That upper spirit, Who hath worst punishment … Is Judas, he that hath his head within / And plies the feet without’ (Dante, 1320, p. 233). While Dante does not assist in defining what is meant by ‘trust’, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (1993), ‘trust’ is defined as:

1. firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something: acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation.

To lose trust is to betray; to not do what one has promised; to tell things that are not true; truth. It will be clear from the cases described in this book that the moral failures necessarily lead to a loss of trust. It is not enough, however, to describe the betrayal. It was also required of the contributing authors that they direct their minds to analyse the response to the case study chosen by decision-makers at the time (should there have been a response), and to also canvass possible, improved, solutions for the restoration of that breach of trust.

The theme running throughout this book of ‘restoring trust’, and hence its title, has been inspired by the work of Margaret Urban Walker and her concept of ‘moral repair’ (2001). Based on an Ethics of Care approach (Gilligan, 1982), which Walker (Care Ethics Research Consortium, 2010) defined as follows:

I believe an ethic of care examines closely the implications of human dependency, vulnerability, and interdependence, and insists on four goods: responsiveness to human needs; responsibility and competence in meeting needs; valuing connection and relationship itself; and valuing of caring labor and activities.

A note on integrity

While it is not the focus of this book, it is clear that the term ‘sport integrity’ is in common usage, so a few words seem to be in order.

For example, prior to a new Government agency, Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), being established on 1 July 2020, the National Integrity of Sport Unit (NISU) provided national oversight, monitoring and coordination of efforts to protect the integrity of sport in Australia from threats of match-fixing, doping and other forms of corruption. NISU defined sports integrity as:

• The manifestation of the ethics and values which promote community confidence in sports, including:
• fair and honest performances and outcomes, unaffected by illegitimate enhancements or external interests; and
• positive conduct by athletes, administrators, officials, supporters and other stakeholders, on and off the sporting arena, which enhances the reputation and standing of the sporting contest and of sport overall. (NISU 2016)

This definition, which resonates with the concept of a ‘good citizen’ (e.g. Dalton, 2015; McCuaig & Hay, 2013), raises more questions than it answers. For example, it is not clear what is meant by ‘manifestation’, or how it should be measured. It is also not explained what are the ethics and values that ‘promote confidence’, community or otherwise. Promoting confidence may be a branding and marketing concern but does not relate to ethics. The reference to ‘illegitimate’ is also not defined to clarify whether it relates to behaviour not authorised by law, or otherwise specified standards or rules (as distinct from integrity nor ethics). The astute reader will notice that none of this says what integrity (of a sport) actually is. Therein lies the difficulty. It is this failure to use integrity to bring positive moral behaviour back into sport that inspired our focus here on trust.

The related concept of the ‘spirit of sport’, is defined by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in the World Anti-Doping Code (attributed to Angela Schneider), and includes the concept of ‘integrity’. David Howman, who also kindly provided the Foreword to this book, when Director General of WADA, in his speech to the Australian & New Zealand Sports Law Association said:

The intrinsic values of sport, often referred to as ‘t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Restoring trust in sport: Corruption cases and solutions
• 2. An overview of corruption in sport around the world
• PART I: International responses
• PART II: National responses
• Index