While fraud and corruption in sport are nothing new, sociologists (Brooks et al. 2013) assess that the context in which acts of corruption occur is now different, primarily due to commercialisation and economic globalisation of sports. Transparency International offers a general definition of corruption as âthe abuse of entrusted power for private gainâ (www.âtransparency.âorg/âwhat-is-corruption/â#define). Maennig (2006, 784) defines corruption âas the use of a position by its occupant in such a way as to fulfill the tasks required of the occupant by the employing institution in a manner consciously at variance with the objectives of that institution; such activity results from a desire for advantages for the positionâs occupant (or, if that occupant is acting as principal agent, for acquaintances, relatives, associated organisations, parties or nations) from the person or institution benefiting from the actionsâ. Corruption in sport often refers to a more restrictive understanding in tune with Gorse and Chadwickâs (2013) definition mentioned in Volume 1.
Maennig (2005, 189) suggests that, in sport, âcorruption may take the form of behaviour by athletes who refrain from achieving the level of performance normally required in the sport in question to win the competition and instead intentionally permit others to win, or behaviour by sporting officials who consciously perform their allocated tasks in a manner at variance with the objectives and moral values of the relevant club, association, competitive sports in general and/or society at largeâ.
Senior (2006) provides an understanding of corruption that helps in the development of a sports-focused definition, arguing that in order for corruption to occur, five conditions have to be met simultaneously âwhen a corruptor (1) covertly gives (2) a favour to a corruptee or to a nominee to influence (3) action(s) that (4) benefit the corruptor or a nominee, and for which the corruptee has (5) authorityâ. Such definition obviously fits with match-fixing, probably less with some other occurrences of corrupt sport covered in this chapter. According to Senior, there has to be a benefit to at least one person in the arrangement. The benefit may be tangible, in the form of a lucrative sponsorship or endorsement agreement, or intangible, the promise of higher status within a team, if one follows Gorse and Chadwick. Whatever the definition, corruption is a core part of the dark side of sport.
Transparency International classifies corruption as âgrand, petty or political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where the corruption occurs. Grand corruption involves actions at a high level, which distort policies or functions of the state. Leaders tend to benefit from this. Petty corruption involves the abuse of entrusted power by low- or middle-level functionaries, and involves access to goods and services, often essential. Political corruption involves manipulation of rules or institutions in the location of resourcesâ (Kihl et al. 2017). In the same vein, a typology of sport corruption was elaborated, taking as its criterion the economic significance of the corruption impact, starting from the bottom with petty corruption for increasing individual income up to top worldwide financial manipulation of sporting outcomes through online betting-related match-fixing networks with millions of euro at stake (Andreff 2016, 2019). The causes range from the simple bribe to multinational crime syndicates seeking to manipulate sporting events across the globe (Kihl et al. 2017).
In this chapter, a classification of corrupt sport is retained that distinguishes corruption by sport insiders only from corruption where outsiders are involved in coordination with ever necessary insiders and from corruption of decision-makers (or voters) in sport governing bodies.
1.1 Corruption from Within Sport
Corruption is first considered as a forbidden or criminal economic behaviour among sport insiders that are participants, athletes and players, coaches, referees, umpires, sport officials and managers from club level up to international sport governing bodies. Benefits can be significant at an individual (or team) scale when they count in thousands of euro or dollars. When it comes to international corrupt networks and mafias the figures may reach some millions of euro or dollars. Corruption within sport may also aim at distorting sporting outcomes for a sporting (non-monetary) benefit which is very significant for a sport participant or a team in terms of ranking, promotion or relegation. This occurrence is coined barter corruption when there is no money stream involved or when money is only a subsidiary benefit compared to the sporting one.
1.1.1 On-the-Spot Petty Corruption
This is âa kind of corruption which emerges between sport insiders, no one of the corrupt or corruptors operate from outside the sports industry. The most ancient type of corrupt sport is the one spontaneously emerging during the course of a sporting contest, say on-the-spot, between two competitors or two teams. Competitor A bribes competitor B to let him/her win instantaneously. Or competitor A would bribe opponent B to accept helping him/her to win in the face of a third opponent. Such on-the-spot corruption is not planned in advance and occurs when an opportunity of securing a win randomly appears in the progress of a sport contest. It is a sort of petty (as distinct from heavily criminal) corruption that distorts a sporting outcome without endangering anyoneâs life or creating a huge societal issueâ (Andreff 2016). It has been defined as spontaneous corruption in the case of match-fixing, i.e. the emergence of unexpected cooperation between rival agents in a sport contest (Caruso 2008). Such behaviour is peculiar because teams need not agree to fixing the match before it is played. It suffices that players on the pitch, or riders in a race, speak with each other and come up with an oral implicit contract trading a sporting win (or a loss) for a bribe.
Collusion is a low-profile variant of corruption. Caruso (2008) evidenced spontaneous cooperation between rivals in sport contests. In a soccer match, players of the two teams speak with each other or simply signal to the opponents, by kicking the ball aimlessly and lazily, their willingness to exert fewer efforts fix the result. Such corruption usually involves monetary payments, i.e. bribes.
In the 1903 cycling Tour de France, Lucien Pothier and CĂ©sar Garin, brother of Maurice Garin, ceded overall victory to the latter, taking instead second and third placeâthe amount of the bribe is unknown. However, four months after the end of Tour de France, all three riders were disqualified by the French cycling federation and Henri Cornet (ranked 4th) was declared the winner.
Jan Raas bribed Gregor Braun on 24 April 1982 to let him win the Amstel Gold Race, according to a French sports journalist, J.M. Leulliot (Bourg 1988). In long distance cycling races like the Tour de France, winning a stage happens to be bargained between two riders who finish ahead of the peloton, eventually one rider bribing the other in the range of between âŹ10,000 and âŹ20,0001 with a variance depending on race circumstances and the type ofâmountain or notâstage (Andreff 2015). In the 1997 Tour de France, during the 20th July stage, Jan Ullrich (Telekom) on the brink of winning the Tour accepted to let Richard Virenque win the stage in Courchevel. Bruno Roussel (head of Festina team) and Willy Voet (Virenqueâs trainer) alleged later that the bribe was amounting to 100,000 French francs (âŹ15,000). In the 1996 Tour, Swiss Laurent Dufaux (Festina) was alleged to have paid 30,000 French francs (âŹ5000) to Bjarne Riis for letting him win in Pamplona.
JĂ©rĂŽme Chiotti, the winner of the world cross-country cycling championship in 1999 admitted that the event was plagued with bribing and collusion between riders about monetary gain sharing. In June 1979, Joseph Voegeli, the director of the cycling Tour de Suisse suspected the two strongest teams, Ti-Raleigh and Ijsboerke-Warncke Eis, respectively coached by Peter Post and Willy Jossart, to have colluded to take over the lionâs share of prizes (180,000 Swiss francs), and decided to fine both teams (1000 Swiss francs each) given an article in the Swiss Tour rules that was forbidding âcollusion between riders of different teamsâ.
1.1.2 Barter Corruption and Its Statistical Detection
Another type of petty corruption between sport insiders works without money. In such barter corruption, an athlete or team A on the brink of being relegated downwards in the sporting hierarchy, and thus in absolute need of a win, offers an athlete or team B to let him/her win. The bribe is not paid in cash but later on with some planned losses accepted by A in further matches against B. Barter corruption is difficult to detect since there is no money stream or other material indices. Since empirical substantiation of barter corrupt practices is unlikely to appear in typical data sources, a fascinating methodology consisting in creative use of existing data was implemented by Duggan and Levitt (2002) to detect corruption in Japanese professional sumo wrestling.
The incentive structure of promotion in sumo wrestling leads to gains from trade between wrestlers on the margin for achieving a winning record and their opponents. A sumo tournament involves 66 wrestlers participating in 15 bouts each. A wrestler who achieves a winning record (eight wins or more) is guaranteed to rise up the official ranking. A wrestler with a losing record falls in the ranking. The critical eighth win results in a promotion rather than relegation.
Duggan and Levitt used a data set of over 64,000 wrestler matches (32,000 bouts) between January 1989 and January 2000 which shows that 26% of all wrestlers finished with exactly eight wins compared to only 12% with seven wins. Distinguishing between match rigging and wrestler effort, a statistical analysis showed an excess win likelihood of between 12 and 16% for wrestlers on the bubble from which the authors concluded that wrestlers win a disproportionate share of the matches when they are on the margin. Increased effort cannot statistically explain the findings. Thus there is a significant probability that in a match involving a wrestler on the bubble, the two wrestlers collude in favour of the formerâs winâthat is match rigging and corruption though without money at stake. If this assumption were to be corre...
