Journal Article Review #2 / Subject: Sports & Recreational Management
millyrawk
millerassignmentone.docxRunning Head: CORRUPTION IN SPORT
Corruption in Sport:
Corruption in Sport is Everywhere
Justin Miller
Texas A&M-Commerce
Abstract
In this essay I plan to inform you on what corruption in sport is, where it can be found, and how often. I have compiled research, as well as my own prior knowledge on this topic to write this essay. This essay will inform you of how important the topic of cheating in competitive sport has become, even though cheating has always been around, you see a lot of cheating continuously occurring especially in this century.
Corruption in sport is a big topic, corruption in sport has been around since competitive sport has been around. There has always been cheating in sports, and there are various ways teams and individuals cheat to gain an advantage on one another.
For example, in January of 2015 the New England Patriots were accused of deflating 11 of their 12 game balls in the AFC Championship game that was played against the Indianapolis Colts. The deflated balls would have helped the quarterback, Tom Brady, and his receivers grip the ball better. The regulation sized NFL football is rather big, so deflating the balls to make sure that things such as fumbling and dropping passes are less likely to occur gives you an incredible advantage in the game of football, especially in the case of turnovers. If you look back on the stats of that game, The Indianapolis Colts turned the ball over three times, as opposed to The New England Patriots’ one turnover that came off of a Tom Brady interception. You could say that if the Patriots did indeed deflate the football’s that game, in that instance it helped the Colts grip the ball better so that securing that interception was easier. Overall, the Patriots ended up winning the game; and possibly if the Patriots’ footballs were properly inflated then possibly there would have been more turnovers in favor of the Colts and the outcome of the game may have been different.
In a journal published in 2015 by the European Sport Management Quarterly by Lisa A. Kihl, talks about corruption in competitive sports, in detail. The journal has information compiled from many outside sources. The journal also focuses on how corruption in sports is viewed throughout society. I believe that this article is a strong, well written article that makes its point. Which is, that corruption occurs in sport all around the world and it is not something that can necessarily be stopped. Reading through this article I see that the author uses words like “sport corruption” and her entire article provided I believe that once you are done reading this article, you will have a good understanding of how much cheating actually occurs in competitive sport, and how easy it is for teams/individuals to cheat. Even at the highest levels of competitive sport. Simply stating that depending on which side of the corruption you are on, you view it differently every time. If you are on the side which is being accused of cheating, or trying to cheat; you may not think much of it because you are doing (technically) what is best for you and your team even if you are not doing what is best for the team in the correct way. If you have ever been in a situation like this where you are the one cheating, typically if you get away with it, of course it is not a big deal. Being on the other end of this situation though, there are plenty of cases where those same people will do everything that they can to prove that the opposing team or another participant cheated if that means that they will benefit from proving that that was indeed what happened.
“European grassroots clubs from five countries were surveyed where match fixing was found to be a serious problem in grassroots football and instances reflected countries; level of general corruption. Organizational capacity factors contributing to match fixing included larger sized clubs, independent (football only) clubs, clubs with less formalized staff, and recorded lower levels of revenue diversification.” (Kihl, 2016) I told you about an instance where there was said to be football in the National Football League, above Kihl describes an instance where there is said to be “match fixing” issues in the European Football Leagues. Some of the larger clubs have known to be involved, proving once again that cheating will occur from the lowest of competition in competitive sport to the highest.
In conclusion, there is and always will be cheating within competitive sport. It would be extremely difficult to completely cut out all of cheating when it comes to someone trying to get the competitive advantage over someone else to win. Especially when talking about living in the generation that we live in today. In the world we live in today, no one wants to work for their success. If someone were to walk up to you and give you a bunch of money to live off of for the rest of your life would you take it? Most people would answer “yes” to that question, although I think about something like that in a different light. Yes, you may be rich and be able to get anything you have ever wanted but you did nothing to earn anything that you get? It may be cool to have a bunch of money lying around, although it would be that much more exciting if you could say that you earned the riches that you have.
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