Sorting out Sports

(This blog is somewhat UK centric – sorry).
I love watching sports. Yet my loyalty gets really tested at times. In the last week we have had to endure the Pakistani cricket scandal and the ramifications of Rugby Union’s bloodgate. And the premiership has returned – with its usual vicious circle of terrible decisions and cacophony of disrespect for referees.

Sometimes I really wonder about how deep the cheating and chucking of games goes. Allegedly Harlequins were far from the only blood cheats. Cricket has for years had a series of allegations and eye-poppingly unlikely results. The Italian soccer scandal, not long ago, was shocking – and the money sloshing around the premiership these days combined with the blatant lack of integrity of key actors makes me think a similar thing in the UK will only be a matter of time. Oh, and recall two or three current managers have been accused of accepting backhanders. Cycling has been totally shot for years. In athletics, we are supposed to credit that all the world’s best sprinters come from one club on a small island. A top snooker star was recently arrested. Rumours abound over chucked tennis matches. Did I mention darts? Boxing is rife with rumour as well. Formula One is pure business, barely sport at all.

And consider what might lie beneath the iceberg. In two major sports the UK suddenly spurted in multiple gold medal winners in the last Olympics from a poor legacy. The string of scores thrown up by one premiership team so far this season at home and in Europe could raise an eyebrow. And these are just the bigger things. What about small fry like county cricket, league two soccer, and the micro stuff of spot bets?

Exactly what are we watching here? Are we seeing fair contests, rigged entertainment or simply televised criminality? When I tune in to watch a sport, does it matter if it feels as staged as the X factor? What are the consequences? And what can be done?

Some things in life matter more of course (the cricket crisis is hardly the worst challenge for Pakistan just now, though the media coverage might lead us to think differently). The worst human consequences come from the after effects of drug use or sports with rules that are plain dumb – remember Mohammed Ali? Apart from that, I suppose there are more exploitative greedy options traders out there than corrupt sports officials, and they cost us more money. Yet the shambles that goes on in many sports is still a wasted opportunity, and we should stay aware that sports influence morals and behaviours, most strongly of our next generation of potential criminals, boys in their teens.

And, serious or not, sports are sorts of brands and in the end there is only so much the customers will take. Some of the above mentioned sports I simply don’t watch any more. Viewing figures, for example for athletics and cycling, show I am not alone. I’ll still watch cricket after this week, but it won’t take many more screw ups to change my mind. At least they’ve innovated smartly, with twenty-20.

I must offer a word in praise of Golf. It would be one of the easiest sports to manipulate. Imagine a player betting on his own score for a round. Assuming the score was a modest one, it would be possible to hit the jackpot pretty well each time. Perhaps this happens, but somehow I doubt it. The locker room controls its own players. And this is a sport where just this year a player self-declared a penalty which cost him a title, in a situation with zero risk of detection. Impressive.

So what can be done? Start by ignoring most of what is written in the media. This tends to be either short term over-reaction, or wishing us back to days which cannot return, or reactionary snobbery (whether against lower class oiks that play soccer or foreigners playing cricket), or plain unachievable (we are supposed to try to ban spot betting in India…while actually ALL betting in most of India is illegal already!).

The first focus for any sport is to gain control of its brand, globally if at all possible. This has to be pretty ruthless. US Football (as so often) sets the blueprint. There is tough central control, with franchises and buyers forced into a set of rules with no opt outs or tolerance for deviation. The rules are set down with the long term interest of the sport in mind, especially its customers (that’s us, the fans). FIFA has the control, but not the management quality. The IOC has the control in theory, but is a club of self serving folk rather than a meritocracy. The ICC has next to no control. I recognise this is not easy in international political environments, but it must be non negotiable.

Second focus is to embrace technology to stay ahead. Too often sports resist technology in the lazy cause of tradition. Hawkeye for instant replays. Many referees with communication for rapid decisions. Retroactive punishment for offences caught on camera. Wire taps of premises and phones. Investment in technology to beat drugs cheats and betting cheats. And be ready to change the rules and the practice of the sport to take advantage, if that is what it takes.

Third, apply the rules with zero tolerance. Now we are using technology we can trust our own rules more, and now we have strong governance and control we can apply them. So employ more sin bins. Emphasise well-trained, well-paid, protected, referees. Apply financial and other penalties for infractions commensurate with the ability to pay (please, please do this before the worst-offending premiership manager finally retires). Ban the cheats, but ban their masters too (an 18-year-old Pakistani lad is hardly a ringleader). Stay the course amid the early ill-effects and whining from vested interests. Finally, try to use the locker room, just like golf does, to impose good norms on all players.

A caveat is to respect the law. I seem to be advocating a series of self-governed police states here, but this has to take place within the boundaries agreed in society. Think of the Catholic Church…and do the opposite.

I hope I can still enjoy sport in twenty years time as much as I do today. I believe it is most likely to happen if sports are able to follow my three point plan. Sadly, I have my doubts that many sports can pull this off.