Restoring Trust in Sport: Corruption Cases and Solutions

This book of case studies is aimed at lecturers, students, policy makers, sports administrators and their legal advisors. Rather than dwelling on the problems present throughout the sport ecosystem, Restoring Trust is intended to be solutions focused. Inspired by an Ethics of Care approach, and the idea of “moral repair” coined by Margaret Urban Walker (eg: Walker, M. U. (2001). Moral repair and its limits), the chapter authors will consider how to re-establish trust both within an organisation, and in the sporting public, hence the title of the book. Each chapter will focus on publicly reported case studies involving an instance of corruption, whether on-field, or off-field. On-field corruption includes ‘cheating to win’ (doping) and ‘cheating to lose’ (match-fixing and tanking). Off-field corruption has been defined using the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). Featuring thirteen women and eleven men, the contributing authors from across the globe write about sports as diverse as biathlon, sumo, rugby league, horse racing, road cycling, golf, tennis, ice hockey and, of course, the world game, football. These sports are represented in case studies from eight countries: South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Nigeria, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia. This is through the eyes of five professions: sports administrators, lawyers, journalists, policymakers, and law enforcement officers working together with academic scholars from nine broad disciplines: business, criminology, economics, ethics, law, political science, psychology, sociology and sports management. Chapter authors have outlined solutions to these problems. As a starting point for suggested solutions for "moral repair" the chapter authors have considered the "Solutions: anti-corruption strategies and their application to sport" outlined by Ordway & Opie in Schulenkorf and Frawley's book, Critical Issues in Global Sport Management (2016). In Part 1, case studies have examined loss of trust at a global scale, through: the 23rd Winter Olympic Games, PyeongChang 2018 (South Korea) procurement disgrace, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) bribery scandal, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code over-reach, and the International Cycling Union (UCI) doping culture. In Part 2, loss of trust at the national level has reviewed: match-fixing in Japanese sumo, Australian tennis, Australian rugby league and Vietnamese football, selection bribery in Czech ice hockey and Nigerian football, and athlete (horse) substitution in Australian racing. The chapters have been structured broadly as: a) What Happened? (when, how, where, and whom? - and possibly why?); and b) What Happened Next? ie: what were the learnings? What changes were put in place, if any, to prevent or reduce the risk, of future threats to sports integrity? If the measures implemented were inadequate, then, what is recommended?