Solving the issue of corruption in sports

According to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” This is true, but when sports organizations and officials become corrupt, the sport loses its fairness and honourability, and therefore it removes the enjoyment for all of those involved. As someone who has been a participant in sports since a young age, watching some of the injustices that can come from dishonest decisions made by referees is nothing new. The research that has been completed on this subject demonstrated why fairness from officials in sport is crucial. In the following few minutes, the problems of corruption and the solutions to help solve it will be explained.

In many sports, spectators, players, and coaches alike would prefer to believe that a game or competition would be completely fair, giving all opponents an equal chance to win, but sadly that is not always the case. Sports reporter for the Hamilton Spectator, Steve Milton, wrote about the Salt Lake City Olympics scandal in 2002 in the paper’s March 3, 2017 issue. In that Olympic games, Canadian pairs skaters Salé and Pelletier skated a near perfect performance but were devastated to learn that they came second even though they were clearly the best team at the event. It was later discovered that French Skating Association president Didier Gailhaguet ordered one of the judges to place a Russian team ahead of the Canadians. This evidently unfair judging caused policies to change and the integrity of figure skating to be questioned. Sports reporter, Owen Gibson, tennis and boxing reporter Kevin Mitchell and reporter Les Carpenter from the Guardian online newspaper wrote an article about corruption in Olympic boxing in the August 16, 2016, issue of the paper. After losing a boxing match he clearly should have won, Michael Conlan had this to say; “I’ll never box in this competition again. If people watch this Olympic Games and see some of the decisions… I think boxing is dead. It’s about whoever pays the most money. Whoever has the biggest (influence) wins.” Through this quote, Conlan illustrates the kind of corruption that occurs in boxing and why it is so detrimental to the sport. According to the Associated Press’ March 14, 2016 addition of their online paper, during the Fifa 2010 World Cup, three officials were banned as a result of match-fixing prior to the game. They awarded multiple penalty kicks for offenses that did not warrant free kicks. The poor judgment was not only unfortunate for the players and coaches, but for the trustworthiness of soccer referees as a whole.

Moving away from the problems of corruption in sports, let’s look at the ways this issue can be solved. The answer to the problem lies within the training of officials and organizations. Game officials, judges, and referees must be trained thoroughly before they are allowed to officiate to ensure they are objective. This will ensure that rules are followed and perspective is objective, allowing for each opponent to have equal opportunity to succeed. Another key to improving officiating and results is to allow officials to gain adequate experience before they are allowed to make judgments during a real game. This would help decrease the number of poor decisions that are made during games and would increase the fairness of sports overall. Some people may be thinking right now that life isn't fair, and that sport is just a part of life so it doesn’t always have to be fair either. Although, the central point of sports is to provide amusement and integrity, meaning that sports are created to be amusing and that enjoyment is directly related the fairness that needs to be displayed.

Now that some solutions have been discussed, it is time to talk about the direct effect these solutions will have on spectators, players, and judges of a sport. The solution helps to create fairness, which is important because it means that everyone has an equal opportunity to win. The solutions will allow integrity to re-enter some sports and remain in others. Integrity is a main purpose of sports and allows them to be enjoyable for those participating. Most importantly, having honest officials will make sports more amusing for all of those involved, from baseball games in small communities to large sporting events such as the Olympics.

Many of the examples used in this speech refer to the Olympics and pro sporting events where corruption issues are evident and the importance of fairness is clear. But that does not mean that fairness only matters in grand sporting events. It matters in the small communities such as Kensington where local referees and officials make decisions in hockey games. If fairness by officials is encouraged from the very beginning in communities, it will continue to grow in grand sporting events such as nationals and Olympic games. It has been a pleasure to be able to talk about the importance of fairness in sports for everyone involved. Thank you.