If the fans switch off because they suspect the innocence of sport is a myth, the whole business model of television rights enriching sport will be blown to bits
The biggest-ever football match-fixing scandal might do to soccer what blood doping did to cycling and steroids to baseball and athletics, particularly sprinting. There was always suspicion about fixing in sport: public cynicism had long ago boiled over to leave a simmering disbelief at every odd result or overwhelming performance.
A tacit acceptance resulted, with match-fixing now attributed to being a reflection of human greed on the sporting field.
The sweep of the latest scandal, in which Asian gamblers from Singapore bribed Europeans via Germany, puts paid to racial stereotyping — as in cricket where Asians were always suspects and noble sportsmen trying hard to resist temptation were inevitably from the first world. In the “beautiful game”, the world’s richest sport, the stars in Europe and South America earn the biggest fortunes.
A whole ring of people — players, officials and referees — have been involved in a gargantuan number of matches: as many as 680 around the world, investigators say; so this cannot be brushed aside as an isolated incident in which one or two bad eggs may spoil the atmosphere while the sport itself remains largely clean. The scale of corruption is truly startling, involving as it does European, African, Asian and South American football.
To blame Singapore as a haven of corrupt betting activities with a global reach would be to miss the wood for the trees. The issue is not so much about Singapore’s reputation as “a safe and ethical financial hub in Asia” and the damage it will suffer due to the latest scandal. The extent to which gamblers have been able to operate freely and fix games in Turkey (79), Germany (70) Switzerland (41), Finland (32), Hungary (20), Belgium (19), Croatia (18), Australia (16), Bosnia (7) and Slovenia (7), according to Europol, the investigating authority, shows how sophisticated the betting cartels have become.
Such scandals as the Brazil “whistle mafia” of the new millennium have been put completely in the shade. The integrity of the sport is under attack like never before, but again we knew gambling, match-fixing and throwing games are as old as the hills, be it 19th-century cricket, baseball in the early 20th century or the great English football scandal of 1964. Those who must feel most cheated are the broadcasters, who shovel billions of dollars into live sport on television. If the fans switch off because they suspect the innocence of sport is a myth, the whole business model of television rights enriching sport will be blown to bits. It’s really up to sport, therefore, to put its house in order.
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