Corruption In Sport: Match-Fixing Accounts For Just 3% In Last Ten Years

Corruption In Sport: Match-Fixing Accounts For Just 3% In Last Ten Years

Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, Mazhar Majeed and Mohammad Amir were handed custodial sentences for their part in the 2010 spot-fixing plot but doping cases still dominate cases of corruption in sport

©REUTERS / Action Images

A report released today has revealed that over the last ten years, only 3 percent of proven cases of corruption in sport are related to match-fixing.

Doping in sport accounts for 96 percent of the cases and misuse of insider information 1.5 percent after Coventry University's International Centre for the Business of Sport (CIBS) analysed 2,089 cases.

Of the 57 match-fixing cases that were investigated, 53 percent took place in Europe and 33 percent in Asia and while the spot-fixing trial that saw three Pakistan cricketers jailed is a high-profile example of fixing in cricket, 70 percent of the match-fixing cases occurred in football.

Cases of betting-related match-fixing were one and a half times more common than non-betting related  match-fixing.

"From our research it was quickly apparent that doping remained the predominant issue within sport," principal researcher Samantha Gorse," said.

"However, in relation to the 3% of match fixing cases we were particularly surprised, given the focus of much of the media coverage in recent months, that there was nearly as much non-betting related match-fixing as betting related.

"Whilst not an attempt to fix the result, the level of the misuse of inside information for financial gain appears to present another important challenge for many sports and licensed betting operators."

During the period of time that the report stipulated, there were just six cases of doping within cricket and one example of mususing inside information in cricket in Europe.

The data compiled by the report includes the cases of the three Pakistan cricketers - Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt - who were banned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for breaching its anti-corruption code earlier this year.

Marlon Samuels' two-year ban in 2008 for passing on information to bookmakers came under the category of misusing insider information for the purpose of the report.

"There is growing interest, and indeed concern, in the issue of corruption in sport," Professor Simon Chadwick, of Coventry University, said.

"Thus far however, there has been no systematic or structured review of corruption and so our study represents the first of its kind. The study clearly sheds some light on the nature, type and extent of corruption in sport. This enables us to more clearly identify where there are particular concerns and issues.

"As such, this should enable organisations involved in sport to more effectively address the challenges posed by corruption. For those of us working in the sports industry, the next challenge is therefore to formulate appropriate responses aimed at minimising the threat posed by the various different forms of corruption that our research team identified."

The report was undertaken on behalf of the leading players in the remote gambling sector: the Remote Gambling Association (RGA), European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) and the European Sports Security Association (ESSA).

© Cricket World 2011