SPORTS fans love to lament the corrupting influence of money on their favourite games. And the scandal at FIFA would appear to prove them right. If only athletes could just exemplify virtues like perseverance and teamwork, as the organisers of the Olympics insist they do. In the real world, however, sport cannot be separated from money. And the very trend that the purists decry—the transformation of supposedly innocent games into big business—provides some of the best protection against malfeasance.
Corruption in the sports world comes in three flavours: cheating to win (such as doping), cheating to lose (match-fixing) and cheating off the field (kickbacks for marketing rights and other business deals). The first, regrettably, is widespread and almost impossible to eradicate. Competitive athletes will always seek an edge and their chemists will always be one step ahead of the testers. The other two are patchier, because they emerge from poor management, and are a little easier to attack.
Match-fixing has faded from most Western fans’ memories since the “Black Sox” scandal of 1919, when American baseball players took bribes to...
from The Economist: International http://ift.tt/1AMqhaR
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