Match fixing: perpetual shadow behind sports

By Cho Mu-hyun

The recent match-rigging scandal that hit the Korean Volleyball Federation (KOVO) won’t settle down anytime soon, as the broker implicated in the scam has revealed that the same thing happens in baseball and basketball as well.

One reason sports are popular is because of the rules and structure and many people watch it to escape their own daily grind. But behind the veneer of integrity, match-fixing has always been perpetual shadow.

No one in sports is unfamiliar with the infamous “Black Sox Scandal,” the scandal of all scandals that hit American baseball in 1919. The Chicago White Sox’s rigging of the World Series that year has been a favorite for movie adaptation and has spawned numerous spin-offs. Jewish Mafia Don Arnold Rothstein owes his name to it.

More recently and closer by, Taiwan’s baseball league suffered from multiple game rigging, with the China Times Eagles disbanded in 1998 for five of its players having connections with local gangsters. 27 players of two teams were arrested and were banned for life in 2005.

In Europe, renowned football team Juventus fell into disgrace when it was relegated to the second division for league-wide match fixing that involved 11 teams and even included the referees.

Korean football was also hit last year, when the domestic K-League uncovered the biggest match-fixing scandal in its history, with some 60 players prosecuted and jailed. One even committed suicide.

It is hard for players and referees to withstand the temptation of cash involved. Careers of players and associates have a short life span and marginal chance of success. It is rare for those other than the best players in a particular sport to avoid seeking a different line of work once their playing careers are over.

For those athletes that no longer make the cut in a professional team or suddenly suffer a career-ending injury, they take part in match-rigging because sport is the only thing they know and for some they can maintain a sense of involvement in the thing they love.

The heat won’t die down any time soon, and with the prosecutor’s office looking into baseball and basketball here, Korean sports just hit a new low.