Corruption in sport: From the playing field to the field of policy

Abstract

How is corruption in sport evolving into a global public policy issue? In the past century, four trends have affected sport according to Paoli and Donati (2013) -de-amateurisation at the turn of the twentieth century, medicalisation since the 1960s, politicisation and commercialisation to the point where sport is now a business worth more than US$141 billion annually. Each of these trends had a corrupting effect on what is generally perceived as a past 'golden age' of sport. In the twenty-first century more public funding is being directed into sport in the developed and developing world. As a result this paper will argue organised sport has entered a fifth evolutionary trend -criminalisation. In this latest phase, public policy needs to grapple with what constitutes corruption in what has historically been a private market.

Quantitative and qualitative impact of GDP on sport performance and its relation with corruption and other social factors

“…Corruption exists in both rich and poor countries and can appear in wide variety of areas (health service, education, etc. ), as well as in sport (Masters, 2015). improving corruption level would lead to higher public spending into these areas, and, consequently would lead to better sport performance (as in the case of great Britain in table 2).…”

Individual-level explanations of corruption within an intercollegiate context

“…Across the literature the definition of corruption is a contested concept. To date, corruption scholars continue to wrestle with defining and conceptualizing corruption (Collins et al, 2009;Masters, 2015) and have yet to accept a universal definition of corruption (Langseth, 2016). In the management literature, a broad, rational-choice definition of corruption is generally used, that is, the abuse of power for personal, subunit, and/or organizational gain (Anand, Ashford, & Joshi, 2004;Zaloznaya, 2014;Zyglidopoulos, Fleming, & Rothenberg, 2009).…”

“…Sport management scholars have also yet to agree on a single, common definition of corruption that is applicable across contexts within the sport industry (Bricknell, 2015;Masters, 2015). Maennig (2005Maennig ( , 2008 provided one of the first demarcations of sport corruption by distinguishing competition (e.g., athlete behaviors, intentionally not trying to win) and non-competition corruption (e.g., sporting officials' behaviors who neglect their expected positional tasks).…”

Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know®, by RayFisman and Miriam A.Golden (Oxford University Press, New York, 2017).

“…What Ray Fisman and Miriam Goldman have done is narrow the topic effectively to an approach from the perspective of political economy, which seems entirely appropriate as Golden is a political scientist and Fisman a behavioural economist. I have argued elsewhere (Masters, , ; Masters & Graycar, ) that corruption is so broad in scope that it requires a descriptor to allow analytical utility. The authors only narrow corruption to political corruption occasionally (e.g.…”

“…Such a standard adequately frames political and public corruption, yet in other sectors such standards become problematic. Corruption in sport, for example, may not breach the law, fail the public opinion standard and be irrelevant to the public interest (Masters, ).…”