The twin evils of sport: Drugs and match fixing!

This is the eighth article in the Daily FT’s fortnightly series titled ‘Business of Sports,’ focusing on the back office of the various sports administered and played in this country. Readers are invited to share their views and express their opinion via email to [email protected] on the features carried in this column so that a greater public participation in sports matters can surface and be debated for the benefit of all

Now that our planeload of Commonwealth Games delegates is back following their valiant bid at St. Kitts, it is perhaps time to revert to the more mundane happenings of sports in our country.

It is therefore opportune to address the twin evils of sport that have plagued not only our nation but have constantly rattled the most powerful countries of the world with apex bodies such as IOC, IAA, ICC and such institutions constantly facing challenges that mire the individual as well as the team in scandals that rock the country.

It was recently announced that the Ministry of Sports (MOS) had appointed a new head of the Sports Medical Unit (SMU). In an address to the media, Prof. Arjuna De Silva outlined the vision he had for the reorganisation of the SMU and having represented Sri Lanka in rowing, the learned professor is well aware of the scope which confronts him and how a good SMU can support a budding champion.

Drug enhancement scandals in athletics, boxing, weight lifting, cricket and rugby have tainted the proud sporting records of Sri Lanka, but we must also recognise that the challenges of the present far outweigh those of the past, with money and fame fuelling a level of competition not seen before. Therefore, it is incumbent of sports administrators to carefully monitor all national level sportspersons.

It may be important for the MOS and the SMU to maintain records of all those sportsmen and sportswomen at a representative national and international level and educate them fully about the risks arising from taking stipulated drugs and the myriad international conventions that govern them.

Ignorance is not bliss as many sportspersons have realised and the path from hero to zero is both devastating and unredeemable. Thus knowledge is vital and the pleas of regret due to ignorance must be promptly eliminated. That performance enhancement comes with a price must be well understood.

The role of managers and coaches also comes into play in such instances. Often times, a sportsperson found guilty of drug taking is left bereft of support from his or her own support staff. While the MOS and its SMU might take up the case and arbitrate the realm of innocence, the perception is that an effort is being made to escape punishment rather than defend the iota of innocence.

Sports in the current context is big business and every individual or team sportsperson strives for excellence in the hope that that outstanding achievement will bring the rich rewards of fame and prosperity. With such ambitions come the professional standards of sport, which for the large part is unforgiving and rightly so.

Once a sportsman crosses the line from amateur competitor to professional champion, the rules are revised and the demands greater. There is no sympathy for the transgressor. Thus, some accountability must rest with the handler for while they may bask in the glory of their protégé, they must also share in the guilt of the fallen, often a lonely place!

Prof. De Silva rightly made reference to the drug menace in schools. While there is evidence to suggest that certain school coaches resort to drugs to enhance the performance of their charges, it has remained largely undiscovered and suppressed though spoken of indiscriminately within the sport!

School sports have taken a new dimension with unbridled commercialisation surreptitiously entering the school system. In order to attract support, absolute performance becomes a veritable sequence of the path to glory …and ignominy.

What it does to the well being and long-term health of a young sportsperson sacrificed on the whims of trainers and enthusiasts to whom winning is everything is a terrible nightmare; and to hell with how you played the game! So this is an area where the MOS and the Ministry of Education (MOE) must collaborate and minimise drug influence by bringing all school-based sports under a code of conduct designed to limit commercialisation at this level of competition. The other evil is of course match fixing. Again, the result of rampant and crass commercialisation, losing seems to be everything! As the Pakistani cricketers now imprisoned in the UK have demonstrated, money has become the primary motive for this deviation from the noble aspirations of the sport. Match fixing is predominantly linked to cricket, but throwing a game in any sport is not impossible to conjure when the rewards are overwhelming and a reverse motivation takes over.

Here too, it is not beyond the determinations of the sports body to institute supervisory responsibility to its staff. If the sport is in a professional mould then another day at the office cannot be allowed to ruin its organisation. And thus the watchdogs must play their part and assume a fair share of accountability. In an ordinary sense, if a fraud occurs in an institution, not only the perpetrators but also the system is called to question. So must it be with professional sport.

As the Hambantota bid for the Commonwealth Games amply displayed, the benefits of bringing the event to our paradise island went well beyond sporting inclinations. In fact it can be argued that the motivations were more economic than pure sports-based justifications.

The point that must be uppermost in our minds is that while grandiose extravaganzas are a necessary evil for whatever reasons that are put forward, the evils that beset sports such as drug misuse and match fixing ought to come within the governance framework of our sports administrators. There must be well defined standards and codes of competition at both the schools and national levels. Transparency must prevail when the glory is won or when the misery of failure is exposed. The czars of our sports empires must pay heed to the fundamentals that will sustain Sri Lanka as a sporting nation instead of paying pooja to the kaleidoscope of drama that seems to engulf us.