Match-Fixing and Doping in Football

All too often we hear people bemoan the dwindling moral standards of professional footballers and the ever-decreasing standing of the game in comparison to other sports.

Those who fear so greatly for the reputation of the game, while well-meaning, often ignore the players whose behaviour is the antithesis to that of the troublemakers.

Additionally, this overly sensationalistic approach ignores the fact that professional athletes of all codes step out of line from time to time and instead portrays football as the sole destroyer of moral standards in sport.

Whether it’s Liam Ridgewell baring his backside while brandishing a £20 note, or Joey Barton’s latest outburst; these are footballer’s worst ambassadors and barely deserve our attention let alone the power to influence our perception of a game in which they’re on-field contributions garner little attention.

There is however two pertinent issues that threaten to leave an indelible scar on the image of the Beautiful Game.

The first is the endemic of match-fixing that Europol’s investigation has this week positioned centre-stage. 680 matches spanning five continents and including World Cup and European Championship qualifiers are implicated in the alleged match-fixing conspiracy.

“A total of 425 match officials, club officials, players and serious criminals from more than 15 countries, are suspected of being involved in attempts to fix…professional football matches,” according to Europol’s 

director Rob Wainwright.

These revelations, allied with the Italian match-fixing troubles of the last number of years, indicate a widespread cancer in the game- from the lower leagues of club football to the upper echelons of elite international competition- that is scantly believable. Worryingly, who knows how many other matches might be involved that we don't yet know about?

It is this sort of tarnishing of reputation that football, and indeed sport in general, can ill-afford. The minimum required for people to maintain an interest in sport is the authenticity of the competition they witness.  Without this fans will become disillusioned and fall away from the game.

We are fortunate in that such a situation still remains unlikely, but should football’s top authorities fail to heed this warning and act accordingly people will eventually grow tired of being cheated and deceived in such routine fashion.

The second great challenge that football faces is one that it has so far failed to acknowledge; preferring instead to adopt a holier-than-thou approach and bury its head in the sand. Doping exists in all sports and football, as the trial of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes seems likely to prove, is no different.

Dr Fuentes is the doctor at the centre of a global sports doping scandal who has stated that his clients included not only cyclists, boxers, tennis players but footballers too.

Fuentes has admitted to aiding his clients in carrying out blood transfusions, although he claims this was to protect the player’s health rather than to facilitate cheating. Self-confessed drug cheat and American cyclist Tyler Hamilton has, however, agreed to appear as a witness in the trial- and in doing so would appear to cast serious doubts over Fuentes’ claims.

Jesús Manazno, the former professional cyclist who was the whistleblower on Dr Fuentes, has claimed that he personally saw well-known footballers attending the medic’s clinic.

Real Sociedad are rumoured to be one club that are alleged to have been involved with Dr Fuentes.  In light of comments made by the club’s former president Inaki Badiola it seemingly matters little whether any such involvement did occur in establishing that doping took place at the club however. Mr Badiola said: “What is certain is that in 2008 our board publicly denounced doctors Eduardo Escobar and Antxon Gorrotxategi because, in the six seasons before [we arrived at the club], at least, the directors paid for medicines or products which in that moment were categorised as used in doping.”

It’s difficult to discern which aspect of the situation is more troubling; the apparent doping at a top level of the sport or the general inertia with which it has been greeted. Either way it is an issue that is likely to gain many more column inches in the coming months. It may well prove to be a painful and prolonged exercise but the truth regarding doping in football must be established and dealt with.

While the misdemeanours of some of football’s more immature professionals are as undesirable as they are unsavoury, their importance is also often overstated. Should football not deal forcefully with the twin scourges of match-fixing and doping there will be no overstating the cost to the game however.

First Appeared on theblend.ie on February 7, 2013