Sporting integrity: what does it mean?
For me, integrity underpins sport. The values and morals that offer a level playing field to all teams is the foundation of competitive sport. Rules must be applied fairly and equitably with all teams treated in the same manner.
And when actions are taken that undermine sporting integrity the culprits must be punished – whoever they are. No one must be above the rules, or too big to be punished.
Regular readers will know exactly where I am going with this.
In Scottish football there will be a vote tomorrow. The Cheats’ Charter will be discussed once more. This is the set of proposed rule changes that would allow a football team that goes bust to set up a new club and have it play in the top league in its place. And these amendments are being discussed for the benefit of one particular club.
Now Scottish football is not a franchise system like the NFL. There are several divisions with promotion and relegation between them on sporting grounds. The top team in a lower division will be promoted. The bottom team in a higher division relegated. And any new team must start and the bottom. It has always been this way. There is not one example in more than 100 years of football of a new team being allowed straight into the top division.
But the rules should be different for Rangers, we are told. And why should sporting integrity be forgotten about? Money. It’s as base and as crass as that. The argument is that the league cannot afford to lose a big club, so the rules should simply be changed to accommodate it.
Kilmarnock chairman Michael Johnston summed it up quite nicely when he told us that his club would support the Cheats’ Charter:
“Member clubs are mindful of a sporting integrity aspect but the commercial benefits outweigh that.”
So there you are. A man whose version of integrity is that it is second to money. He can be bought and sold. And sadly he will not be the only person in a position of power within Scottish football who thinks this way.
Why should Scottish football dismiss sporting integrity so easily? Other footballing bodies have shown that rules apply to everyone regardless of commercial considerations.
In Italian football, a match fixing scandal in 2006 saw the champions Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina all relegated and AC Milan hit by points deduction.
No one argued that Juve, the grand old lady of Italian football, was too big or too famous to be relegated. The club broke the rules and so the champions of Italian football were punished for their crimes.
In France, Marseilles have had a league title taken away after being found to have fixed matches.
And other sports have taken action against big names too.
Snooker suspended John Higgins, a multiple world champion, on suspicions of match fixing. While it was never proven that he did cheat, even the failure to report an approach made to him resulted in a ban from the sport.
Athletics has acted against many who have been found guilty of taking drugs, at all levels of the sport. Even the winner of the Olympic 100m, the blue riband event, was not immune. Ben Johnson had his gold medal removed and a world record taken from him. The fastest man on the planet wasn’t immune to punishment.
In these cases sporting integrity came first. The big names, all of whom undoubtedly brought great commercial benefits to their sports, were not given a free ride. The rules were enforced in exactly the same manner as they would to any other competitor.
And that is the way sport should work. The rules must be applied to all on an equitable basis without grace or favour.
So when Scotland’s top flight football clubs come together tomorrow will they choose to make sporting integrity a priority?
Or will they put money first and sell off their principles and their sporting integrity?
Excellent article Gordon! I agree with you 100%
I completely agree. Without integrity, what is the point?
I have been trying to post the following on CQN, but I can’t seem to be able to get a log-in to allow me to do it, I wondered if you would mind posting it, I am trying to post it on various Celtic and other fan sites.
Fellow Scottish football fans.
I am, like most of you, thoroughly disenchanted with the tax fraud which is about to be perpetuated on Scottish football by the owners, new and old, of Rangers Football Club in Administration, with the active assistance of the custodians of our game, both the league administrators, and the owners of many of our clubs. The comments of the Kilmarnock chairman yesterday, in which he made clear that commercial considerations outweigh integrity, laid stark the calculation which has been made by many of them.
I have also felt pretty powerless – this sting is taking place in front of our eyes, we all know that it is happening, and it’s hard to see what we can do to stop the perpetrators. The situation is not helped by the Scottish media’s endorsement and spinning of the efforts to drop a brand new team into the SPL, “cleansed” of the debt which allowed their predecessors to cheat their way to success for a generation. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know here, but it’s worth repeating it anyway – if they succeed with their cynical plan, I see no point in continuing to follow my team. When cheats are deliberately allowed to prosper, there is no sport.
Here’s the rub – we Scottish football fans can threaten to withdraw our support, but by the time that this is tested, it’s too late. If we collectively follow through on our threat to give up Scottish football, our action will be after the event. They have made a calculation that whatever support is lost in the long term will be outweighed by the commercial benefits of retaining some form of Rangers, playing at Ibrox, in the SPL. And by presenting it as a fait accompli, they may be right in their assumption that most fans will ultimately prefer not to punish their own team by walking away when it is too late to stop it happening anyway.
So what to do? I have mulled over this for a long time, and I believe that there is a way that Scottish football fans can flex their collective muscles ahead of the fix. But we have to act in unison (which means dropping inter-supporter rivalries for the intervening period) and we need to act quickly.
The football season is almost over, and the remaining games are generally irrelevant (I recognise that a few teams still have important issues to resolve). I believe that we can all make a strong collective statement by unsubscribing from Sky Sports and ESPN now. Right now. No not once the season is over, I mean NOW!
To be clear, the broadcasters have, as yet, done nothing wrong, but we need to make it clear to them now that if this fraud is perpetuated, the SPL rights for which they pay millions of pounds a year are worthless.
It is not enough to simply unsubscribe – we need a website in which every Sky Sports and/or ESPN customer who has unsubscribed posts their account number (which I don’t believe carries any significant data protection issues – or if it does, just enough digits to usefully identify the account to the broadcaster) and the team which they support. Through this, the value of the lost business can be made transparent.
If 10,000 people do that, at a rough guess that’s worth in the region of £3,600,000 a year to the broadcasters. If 100,000 people do that, it’s worth around £36,000,000 a year. That’s what we should be aiming for.
Will this work? Only if there is a rapid mass movement to unsubscribe. Many people do unsubscribe for the summer anyway, fans of every team should be doing so now and making it clear on one website that they will not resubscribe in August if this con is pushed through. If only a few people participate, we can conclude that the will is not actually there to do anything meaningful, not enough fans actually care enough, and we collectively deserve what we get.
But I believe the will is there, and if this is done effectively, it will send the strongest possible message to the leaders of Scottish football, and the broadcasters, that Scottish football is worth a lot less with newco parachuted into the SPL than without it.
This needs leadership. My hope is that this cause is quickly taken up, and that somebody feels that they have the ability and time to get this moving and get a website up and running. I believe it needs somebody to reach out to fans of every SPL team, and find individuals amongst the support of each team who will lead and cajole their support. It must go well beyond the users of online forums (though every forum should be approached) to the grassroots and wider support of every team.
As a footnote, I am a Celtic fan, and a very occasional poster, though avid reader of CQN and RTC. But on this, I think my allegiance is irrelevant.
Yours in hope…
spot on gordon,Scottish football will become a laughing stock in europe if this goes ahead.Thousands of fans will be lost to the game