The FA has got off very lightly for the shocking crowd scenes that marred July’s Euro 2020 final at Wembley. A paltry €100k fine and one match to be played behind closed doors is merely an embarrassment, consistent with football’s slap-on-the-wrist approach to punishment. It’s not alone. Sport generally lacks a backbone.
The excellent new Netflix series Bad Sport ends with a rehashing of Hansie Cronje’s cricket match-fixing. South Africa’s captain traded immunity from prosecution in return for providing evidence to the inquiry into his relationship with bookmakers. He wound up with a lifetime ban from the sport.
Two decades on, I doubt a cricketer would receive the same ban for similar offences today. The world of anti-doping has demonstrated the near-impossibility of barring athletes for life. Lawyers argue forcefully that such a punishment is a restraint of trade and unlikely to be defensible in court. Grist to the mill of those who believe everyone should have a shot at redemption.
“I honestly don’t think that Cronje was a bad man.” Jonathan Agnew in Bad Sport.
“ I cannot tell you the huge shame it has caused me, the great passion I have for my country, the great passion I have for my teammates, and the unfortunate love I have for money.” Cronje at the King Commission inquiry.
The result is sprinter Justin Gatlin coming back from two drugs bans, winning Olympic gold in Athens after the first and World Championship gold in London after the second. How did those victories make you feel? I hated them.
Last year the US introduced the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act. Now doping at any international event involving American sportspeople can be deemed a criminal offence punishable by up to ten years behind bars.
The World Anti-Doping Agency - not the most resolute of organisations in pursuit of its remit - has cavilled at the Act. Let’s see if the Americans can make a case stick in the criminal courts. I have my doubts - they certainly need to win the first case for this to be seen as a credible deterrent. There is speculation that Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare’s doping violation this July could provide that challenge for the US courts.
Ten years ago this week, three Pakistani cricketers were jailed in the UK for spot-fixing at a Lord’s test match. The youngest, Mohammed Amir, was only 18 at the time of the offence. He served half of a six month jail sentence and most of a five year ban from the sport.
In 2017 I watched Amir rip through the Indian batsmen as Pakistan romped to victory in the ICC Champions Trophy final. How did I feel? Exhilarated, to be honest. Was three months in Feltham Young Offenders Institute really necessary, or was the lengthy cricket ban enough for such a young and no doubt vulnerable young man? His much older co-conspirators, it should be noted, received longer bans which effectively ended their careers.
Restraint of trade surely is the key. Let’s embrace restraint as an objective, not bow to it as a lawyerly argument as to why severe punishment is unworkable. My solution, which I had a hand in introducing at UK Athletics, is for athletes to sign up to a menu of sanctions as a condition of participating in their sport.
At UKA, athletes picked to represent GB have to commit contractually that they will never be selected for their country again if they are ever found guilty of a doping offence. This approach could be employed at all levels in all sports and extend beyond doping to gambling, match-fixing or indeed anything deemed to bring a sport into serious disrepute.
And this shouldn’t just apply to athletes but owners, agents and administrators too. Why should there be any place in a sport for those who wilfully flout its regulations for either financial and/or sporting gain?
By all means deduct league points from clubs who break financial fair play rules, but recognise that this is a ‘least worst’ approach that can end up satisfying nobody. Best to make sure that such punishments are accompanied by lifetime bans for those at the helm of the miscreant clubs. This sanction should be codified in regulations for owners and directors. If criminal proceedings for fraud follow too, all well and good.
What of the chaos at the Euros final? There has been much debate about whether it will scupper a possible FA bid to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup. Why is there any debate? It clearly should do.
Copping a million
Amidst all the nonsense surrounding COP26, the UK government’s decision to invest £1 million to back an Extreme E off-road race in the Outer Hebrides next year is the most nonsensical of all. What a ridiculous PR stunt. As if this will make one iota of difference to the cause of electrification of motoring. If the Chancellor would like a list of worthier sporting causes for a million pound investment he need only ask.
In the flow
If you find minute-by-minute web updates the only way you are able to follow your Premier League team’s game this weekend, don’t assume their author is at the ground. I was told last week that one major media group relies on office-bound scribes watching illegal streams of matches to churn out these ‘real time’ snippets. If true, they are as reliant as anyone else on a VPN and a dodgy feed. Within a few years surely the Premier League will make every game available live on TV or handheld device. Update services will then be as obsolete as the original vidiprinter.
Twin towers and dinosaurs
Last week’s Sport inc. led with the women’s football at Wembley. One reader took his footy-mad 15 year old twins - one boy, one girl - to the game.
“It was an eye opener for him… he had lost his voice by half time screaming support for the Lionesses, and at the end admitted that he enjoyed the game far more than any of the recent men’s internationals. His sister will not let him forget that in a hurry. The problem that I come across locally (I am heavily involved in both boys and girls football) is the apathy towards the women’s game from die-hard male dinosaurs who still prefer to regard girls football as a playground kick about.”
The FA should launch a ticket offer for dinosaurs for the next Lionesses match.
While I’ve never been a huge sports fan Ed, I’m more disillusioned with it than ever because of the pernicious impact of money. Whether it’s premier league managers being paid £8m for failing, or cricket tours being cancelled for apparent covid reasons, and then layer onto that apparent failings to deal with racism here and there, perhaps it’s just broken ?