There is so much money involved in football nowadays — not only from takings at the turnstiles but from sponsorship of everything from trophies to televised matches — that the actual playing of the game seems to be a by-product. Is it any wonder that capitalism's business 'ethics' has permeated every aspect of the sport?It barely makes the headlines if politicians are involved in bribery or corruption, and certainly no-one reacts by saying how unexpected or out-of-character it all is. But rumours of bribery and back-handers in sport still bring out shocked responses of the “I can’t believe it” type. People just don’t want to admit that sporting stars could stoop so low as to accept under-the-counter payments or even fix results. They are supposed to be on a pedestal, role models for the young and modern-day folk-heroes. Yet the last few months have seen a parade of accusations, arrests and sackings, all centred around sporting sleaze and corruption of one kind or another.
Salim Malik, former Pakistan cricket captain, risks being banned for life after being accused of attempting to bribe two Australian players to lose. The biggest scandals, though, have been in football— and this is in addition to players appearing in court on assault charges or admitting to drug-taking. In February Arsenal manager George Graham was sacked for allegedly receiving £425,000 as part of a transfer deal (paid by a mysterious “agent” out of the difference between what Arsenal paid for a player and what the selling club received), and there are many rumours about other managers expecting such pay-offs as a matter of course. In March three Premiership footballers were arrested and questioned about match fixing, though not charged. The story runs that bookmakers in Malaysia, where gambling is illegal but big business, have attempted to rig matches (including even a couple of World Cup games) so as to engineer results or scores favourable to themselves. It is hardly surprising that two of the arrested players are goalkeepers, who are naturally best-placed to affect results by letting in an easy goal or two. Even if all the rumours and scandals turn out to be baseless—and it has to be stressed that at the time of writing nothing has been proved—football’s image is bound to be tarnished.
The shock felt by football supporters is no doubt based on two considerations. One is that footballers and managers earn what are, by most people's standards, fairly high wages. If you are getting £100,000 or over a year anyway, why should you look to dishonest ways of making even more? But one thing that is always at the back of players’ minds is the relative shortness of their careers, the ever-present risk of serious injury, and the prospect of a drastic fall in earnings, once their playing days are over. And as the world of business and politics will show, however much you may have, you can still want more. A taste for the high life can easily develop among those who weren’t born to riches. The other point is the feeling that how dare anyone who has the privilege of playing professionally, something that millions aspire to but few achieve, betray their sport, their club and their supporters by throwing a game. Those who follow a team through lean years and downpours, spending considerable sums of money in the process, expect the players always to be doing their best, even if they can’t all be great players. But sport of course is a business and its practitioners sell their skills just like other workers, so selling a game is really only part of the same logic, the logic of capitalism, where everything, including sincerity and commitment, is for sale.
Nor can it be argued that in the good old days such things never happened, that before the days of the Premiership, live TV, sponsorship, replica shirts and so on, there was a time of innocence untainted by commercial considerations or any whiff of bribery. In the mid-sixties a dozen players, including some internationals, were convicted of match-rigging and banned for life. In 1927, the chairman of Arsenal was suspended for illegal inducements to players to join the club. Back in 1905, Billy Meredith of Manchester City was suspended for attempting to bribe an Aston Villa player; it subsequently emerged that City had been making illegal payments to players: several were suspended for a year, and two directors banned for life. There never has been a golden age when football was just football.
Professional sport is part of capitalism, and cannot be expected to operate on a different basis from that of society as a whole. If it is run by money and considerations of profit. It’s because that is precisely the basis on which capitalism works.
Paul Bennett
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