Match Fixing: Unethical or Illegal?

The first time it happened, the idea that some Indian cricketers could be involved in fixing matches was a truly devastating one. Having grown up like millions following the game to the point of obsession, and having believed so unquestioningly in the commitment of Indian cricketers, the thought that some of our losses which caused so much pain were manufactured as were some of the sweet victories, made it seem that the world had retrospectively lost meaning. Cricket may only be a game, but the emotional highs and lows that it generated surpassed anything else in life, and to have a mockery made of one’s most impassioned feelings was a shattering experience .

 Strangely, cricket fans, by and large, took the revelations in their stride and most of the tainted cricketers have been rehabilitated in other fields quite seamlessly, including commentating and politics. The recent revelations about match-fixing at the highest levels in tennis and the ATP’s actions in keeping things quiet are part of a larger attitude of turning a blind eye to this phenomenon as far as possible. The illusion is maintained, for what is sport but illusion? Manufactured rules, arbitrary conventions, invented pursuits, arcane skills tied together to contrive wholly artificial but deeply involving meaning?

 Given this is so, why is match-fixing illegal and why should players found to be involved face the prospect of spending time in prison? That the offending athletes should be punished in an exemplary fashion cannot be argued, for they are guilty of violating a trust so pure that even the most thuggish hooligan invests tears of belief in the game. Why does the accountability go outside the bounds of sport, across the mechanisms of societal reproof, beyond the legally mediated world of contractual dispute into the realm of the criminal justice system ? It is a violation of a contract both explicit and implicit, but so is cheating in a marriage, and that is not illegal. It cheats paying spectators, by making them believe that they are watching a real contest when they are not, but for many spectators, the same is true for wrestling bouts, where everything is, scripted. Nobody asks for wrestlers to be prosecuted for pretending to beat the stuffing out of each other. And what of ‘fixed’ reality shows or performances in talent competitions? Would ‘throwing’ a contest also invite criminal investigations?

 What precisely is illegal about match-fixing? Is it the act of deliberately tailoring one’s performance in order to fashion a specific result, which is contrary to what one has been contracted for? If that is the case, then this should be a crime regardless of what level the sport is being played at. Just as stealing is stealing, no matter what the amount, a fixed match in a neighbourhood park should also attract the same kind of legal action.

 Also, while a fraud of some kind is perpetrated, the intention here is not to defraud spectators, that is merely a by-product of the desire to make more money for themselves. The actual infraction is a violation of a contract- it is only in really popular sports that these have a material financial and emotional consequence. In that sense, it is not the action that is the problem, it is the context around it that makes it so.

 If the spectators are the aggrieved party, does the amount that spectators spend on a ticket entitle them to seek such disproportionate damages from the sportsperson? In any case, the vast bulk of spectators, spend nothing as they watch from the comfort of their couches. The ones that suffer the most financially are those that bet on outcomes, but surely the athletes are not accountable to those who choose to bet on their efforts, nor is there is a compelling reason for the law to protect the rights of this lot.

 It is worth asking if a similar action in a different context would also get pegged as a crime? If in a competitive business pitch, an employee were found to be deliberately underperforming in order to help a rival, without sharing any secrets, she would certainly be fired, but would she be liable for criminal prosecution? In a larger sense, is one the owner of one’s own performance, or is that the legally enforceable property of those that contract it? If one can be paid to win, why can’t one be paid not to win?

 To pull back a little, isn’t is more than just a little ridiculous that we have begun to take sport so seriously that people can go to jail because of it? Does it not seem a little odd that in a completely made-up tournament like IPL or worse, ICL, players can be imprisoned for deliberately overstepping on a line at a pre-determined juncture while tossing a red leather ball to someone waiting to swat it with a wooden bat?

 Societally, we have chosen to pay these people unreasonable sums of money for carrying out a certain set of actions. The excessive enthusiasm shown by the consumers of sport, over which the players have no control, has created a sense of entitlement about those that perform at their behest. The players become (well-paid) slaves to the popularity of the sport, and we as spectator-owners seek to extract our pound of flesh when they do not follow the rules we have made up. Sport which was conceived of as a theatre where human abilities would find their purest expression, has gradually been dragged back into the real world, by making it the conduit to everything it was designed to be detached from. It is this external worldly pressure that creates the motive for cheating as well for treating the infraction as a crime. Cheating at sports is a terrible crime against a very fragile humanity that sports was designed to uphold, but it is not a crime per se- not in the legal sense of the word.