THE AUTHOR: GIDEON HAIGH
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In 1936-37 Australia, led by Donald Bradman, staged one of cricket’s greatest comebacks, fighting back from a 0-2 deficit to overcome England 3-2. There was joy – and some scepticism.
Bradman’s father put it to him that the first two Tests must have been rigged, to guarantee interest in the last three. ‘‘I told him you can’t rig a game of cricket,’’ Bradman recalled, ‘‘but I can’t say I convinced him.’’
You can rig a game of cricket, lucratively, and you need attempt nothing so ambitious as meddling with the result: reach a score at a predetermined point, yield a certain number of runs in a spell of bowling, and you can take a cut when others clean up.
Cricket is particularly susceptible to manipulation. Its myriad variables and long duration make for plentiful betting opportunities.
It is most popular in Asia where gambling is either restricted or illegal, beyond the reach of supervision and regulation. It has grown rich comparatively quickly – in the last generation – so that its attitudes and institutional structures have struggled to adapt.
In India, cricket’s candy mountain, the attitude to corruption is cavalier, even lighthearted. Indian cricketers, it is argued, are so extravagantly rewarded that they would do nothing to endanger their careers. Yet being rich beyond the dreams of avarice did nothing to stop Wall Street financiers driving the world’s economy into a ditch.
Money does not lead naturally to a state of satiety; more often it instils a yen for more.
Attitudes to fitting reward, moreover, have been debauched by the advent of Twenty20 leagues, which make overnight millionaires of ordinary players who happen to hit a long ball even if they have no other faculty.
Cricket, then, is becoming a decidedly unequal society, of haves with a sense of entitlement, and have-nots with a sense of grievance. You could not engineer an environment more conducive to corruption if you tried.
In the past decade, cricket has gotten extremely lucky twice. Indian police tapping a gangster’s phone overheard his conversations with South African Hansie Cronje; a British tabloid caught an intermediary selling the services of SalmanButt, Mohammad Amir and MohammadAsif.
Cricket’s authorities can derive no satisfaction from these isolated prosecutions, which they themselves did nothing to initiate. The game will languish under the pall of corruption a while yet – and, frankly, it deserves to.
Gideon Haigh is the author of Out of the Running: The Ashes 2010-11.
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THE JOURNALIST: MAX PRESNELL
Fixing sports results is hardly a modern phenomenon. What's needed is a banker with the betting ammunition and expertise to get the prime result. With the World Series it was Arnold Rothstein, who like most big gamblers, sought an edge. Bankers play on human weakness: greed or peer pressure, those easily led like Shoeless Joe.
In recent decades coups on general sport, with the suspect scent that comes with them, have been more prominent. Betting, particularly on cricket and various codes of football, is flourishing.
There is the opportunity in betting outlets to back a horse, player or team to lose. Such exchanges offer transparency though, unlike the shonky operators in India, for example, who make money trails difficult to trace.
Horse racing has always been a hunting ground for fixers. One of the well-known incidents is the attempted Fine Cotton ring-in at Brisbane's Eagle Farm in August 1984. Despite it being an exercise in buffoonery, a banker was found.
Stern controls, particularly in Australia, have forced the racing industry to evolve. Surveillance of events and betting trends is far greater than in any other sport, though anybody figuring the turf is free of hot cases probably believes in the tooth fairy.
Nobbling, another branch of fixing through drugs that enhance or inhibit performance, keeps racing analysts on their toes. When a new sting is detected, the chemists produce a substitute. The intensity must be maintained.
Can fixing be eliminated? Probably not. How do you decipher whether a champion jockey or sportsman makes a mistake by design or is just having an off day?
Ruling bodies, particularly those without previous experience in chicanery, cannot afford to turn a blind eye. Hit hard like US baseball did with Shoeless Joe. Though the civil courts took no action, he never played in a major league again.
Officials and peer groups also should get the message across to players: be a ''Rube'', a word Arnold Rothstein coined for ''highly talented guys who work for peanuts''.
But honest peanuts which are more satisfying than a sly wink and a backhanded buck.
Max Presnell has covered horse racing for Fairfax publications for more than 50 years.
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THE ACADEMIC: DECLAN HILL
So sports fans are upset about the arrest of a rugby league player who may have bet on his own match? Well, here is the bad news: the wave of sports corruption and match-fixing is just starting and it is going to get really, really bad.
Why? First, there is an unspoken, economic tide underneath match-fixing. This is the globalisation of the gambling market. Ten years ago there were distinct betting markets around the world, but now, thanks to the internet and international television deals, there is really only one large global sports gambling market. This means you can place a bet on virtually any sport event taking place in the world.
How small are some of these sports events? Well, there was a summer soccer tournament for teenagers in Denmark that had bets placed on the matches in the Asian market. There were matches in the semi-professional, third-division Korean soccer league that were fixed by gamblers.
I had a conversation with a triad-connected businessman who placed bets on the Icelandic soccer league, because he thought it was the only league in the world where there would not be fixing. The corruption in sport ranges from games like these to the major international soccer tournaments, where for
20 years Asian criminal fixers have been approaching referees and players with bribes.
Lots of commentators are now declaring that match-fixing is luring in organised crime and gangsters. This is true, but concentrating on the big boys misses the point. The globalisation of the gambling market means now almost anyone can fix a sports event.
So long as a player is not stupid enough to walk into his own local betting shop and place a bet, there is little effective detection possible on the gambling market. The gambling authorities claim there is, but really smart fixers corrupt games every day and the betting industry cannot tell what is going on.
Finally, there is an elephant in the room. Many international sports officials are corrupt. Almost no governmental authority wants to discuss this problem.
But athletes know that some of the people running their teams, leagues and sports are taking illicit cash. Until someone is willing to tackle this problem, then the match-fixing will only get worse.
Dr Declan Hill is the author of The Fix: Soccer and Organised Crime.
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THE FAN: MATTHEW KIDMAN
With four rounds to go in the 2009 National Rugby League season, I received a call from a colleague. He was adamant that my rugby league side, the Sydney Roosters, were going to lose the last four matches of the year and collect the wooden spoon. Despite the Roosters' poor performances that year, I bit back, asking "Why are you so sure?"
His response: "I reckon that several players stand to win a lot of money if the team loses." I dismissed the comments as a mate trying to stir me up about my beloved team.
The Roosters did indeed lose their next three matches. Heading into the last round the rumours of a Roosters loss by a certain margin gained momentum in the football community. Watching the game against the Cowboys, I could not believe how pathetically the Roosters collapsed in the second half to lose by more than 13 points - the amount the rumours had suggested. It made my stomach churn.
Nothing came of that incident and it just goes to show how hard it is for authorities to prove a case of match-fixing. Did the Roosters deliberately lose that game? No one will ever find out but the Roosters deny the allegations.
I believe we can eliminate match-fixing, especially when it comes to a team sport. It is increasingly difficult to convince enough players to throw a match. It would have to be an awfully expensive sting to get the whole side to roll over.
A bigger threat, especially to rugby league, is the emergence of exotic bets. These bets focus on certain events taking place during a match, such as the first points scored. They are more dangerous because fewer people have to agree to the fixed outcome. In the Bulldogs and Cowboys match, now under investigation, it would have only taken one player to fold to pull off the alleged fix. Exotics are a time bomb for the game. I think they should be banned and, while this might mean a hit to the NRL hip pocket, it would make match-fixing more of a long shot.
I would also argue for a life ban on anyone - players, managers, club employees and support staff - found guilty of match-fixing of any type. Finally, I would set up an independent commission within the league to investigate any suspicious circumstances, with powers to name players or any other person involved in what seems like a sting.
Matthew Kidman is a Roosters fan.
