Too much at stake to uphold sport integrity? High-performance athletes’ involvement in match-fixing

Abstract

Non-betting-related match-fixing constitutes an important integrity issue in contemporary sports. With varied forms ranging from passive tanking to the purposeful, coercive, calculated bribing of others to gain advantages, non-betting-related match-fixing can be a form of corruption that deters sport development. This paper examines high-performance athletes' involvement in non-betting-related match-fixing in South Korea. Drawing from survey data (n=731), this paper describes and analyses the prevalence of match-fixing, its locales (i.e., levels of competition) and origins (i.e., who made the offer/approach).Results show that: (1) 74 athletes (10.12%) were approached to take part in match-fixing, while 33 of those athletes (4.51%) actually participated; and (2) the match-fixing offers were usually made 'by coaches', 'at high school-level nationwide competitions', 'for the purpose of entering universities'. Finally, this paper concludes by suggesting that the excessive incentives (e.g., university admission) linked with elite sport development structures may account for the strong motive behind non-betting-related match-fixing, and its endangering of sport integrity.

A Scoping Review of the Causes and Consequences of Fraud in Sport

“…Interestingly, many factors that can act as motivators for potential future offenders of non-betting-related competition manipulation are highly similar to the ones listed above, and known to influence betting-related competition manipulation. In fact, competition advantages are also synonymous with financial rewards, such as price money, transfer promises, academic benefits, and better employment contracts for athletes (Jetter & Walker, 2017; Kihl, 2018a; Tak et al, 2020; Yilmaz et al, 2019). As to referees, they are more prone to become the likely offender of this type of fraud in sport when they are promised career advances (Boeri & Severgnini, 2013), or when they rely on the bribes they receive to complete their monthly salary (Numerato, 2016).…”

“…Additionally, we placed non-betting-related competition manipulation in the first category, though Gardiner (2018) considered cheating and gamesmanship to be distinct activities as they are not related to financial outcomes. Yet, the academic literature indicates that this type of competition manipulation is also often linked to financial benefits such as price money and bribes (Jetter & Walker, 2017;Tak et al, 2020). Regardless of the specific benefits that are gained through the manipulation of competitions, both types (i.e., betting-and non-betting-related) involve a strong diminution of the uncertainty of outcome that is characteristic and essential to sport contests (Chappelet, 2015;Harvey, 2015).…”

Deconstructing match-fixing: a holistic framework for sport integrity policies

“…Situating their analyses in the context of Asia, Europe and even the cyberspace, 1 and using different methodological approaches coming from sociology, political science, social psychology, and criminology, the contributions that make out this symposium [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] show the social, economic and political impact of betting and non-bettingrelated match-fixing, provide multi-sport empirical evidence on different facets of the phenomenon, and fill the gap of robust evidence-based scientific studies on the subject.…”

“…Beyond this broad conceptualization and despite the usual division between bettingrelated and non-betting-related match-fixing ( [15,16], all in this issue), in practice, both public policies and prevention programs have been revolving around betting-related manipulations. In fact, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) clearly states that "Match-fixing is normally referred to as competition manipulation related to betting" 2 :…”

“…Tak et al [15] examine existing incentives for high-performance athletes and coaches to accept engagement in non-betting related manipulations of sports competitions. Focusing on the South Korean case, the authors illuminate the excessive motivations built within the bureaucratic sports development system.…”