Since its origin, sport has always been a mirror of human ambition because it reflects our inner competitive nature. We like to compete with each other and like to see other people compete which is probably the main reason sports is so popular in all countries of the world. Sport lies deep inside our culture, our lifestyle and the way we entertain ourselves. It represents effort, teamwork, and pushing the boundaries of human performance. Yet behind every world record lies a fragile balance between ethics and achievements. The same things that pushes athletes to set new limits can also tempt them to cross the ethical line.
In the era of billion-dollar broadcasting rights, celebrities with millions of followers and betting platforms who go digital and serve their clients online, integrity has never been under greater pressure. Using doping, manipulation with match results and weak governance systems threaten not only fairness but the soul of sport itself.
The biggest challenge is not just to catch cheaters because it’s just a symptom of a broken system. The major objective for sports committees is to build systems and perception of sport that are faced against cheating at its core. We need to stop that because big sports will lose the war for people’s interest to cybersport. Exploring the ethical issues that evolved over the past decades is important because we can minimize the downsides of big sports in the eyes of a global audience. The global sports landscape is still full of corruption and doping scandals that break the image and leave people with questions like why should I watch competition where pharma always beats talent and dedication? When the platforms like 777 fun who offer million-dollar sponsorships deals to athletes in football and basketball go global and operate not just in the LATAM region but Europe and Asia, there’s a demand for transparency that should be fulfilled.
Doping As The Oldest Scandal in Modern Sport
The fight against doping is as old as sport itself. You can find records that even ancient Olympians used various herbal stimulants and special diets to gain advantage over others. In the 20th century, the industry of anabolic steroids and synthetic drugs turned sports into a science and provoked a huge trust crisis.
By the late 1990s, doping scandals had shaken literally every possible sport you can imagine. Despite strict testing, doping is still used here and there before and gives athletes unfair advantages over others. Imagine how it’s like to train your entire life and have the highest level of dedication and lose to an athlete who used a couple of shots of doping. Athletes are pushed to the point where they chase records that wouldn’t exist without doping. You can lose sponsorships to cheaters and never succeed not because you’re doing something wrong, but because of doing everything right. Margins of victory are measured in milliseconds and temptation to use some enhancer grows when the difference between gold and anonymity is microscopic. Many justify their actions as “leveling the field” assuming everyone else is doing it and asking why they should stay outside the game. Others fall victim to corrupt coaches promising success at any cost.
Betting and Match Manipulation
Sports betting is as old as the sport itself. It always was a nice way to entertain yourself and make bets on who was gonna win. And from a simple entertainment this evolved into an industry worth more than 17 billion dollars. And while sports betting becomes legal in more and more countries, legalization is still a big thing that prevents the industry from doubling its turnover.
Despite having hard times with legalization, the sports betting industry still suffers from match-fixing, spot-fixing that exploits players, referees and officials through bribes. Even small manipulations can shift odds and generate millions in profit.
Lower-tier athletes and officials are often financially vulnerable and that’s the reason why they become an easy target for malicious actors who try to incentivize them for underperforming in a match that they bet on. There are always a portion of underpaid players or players who are suffering from debt in minor leagues. That’s why quick cash incentives look like an easy move to quickly pay the debt and concentrate on the game. But once involved, they face blackmail and permanent damage to their reputation, harming not just a specific athlete’s career, but the clubs’ reputation and the entire sports industry.
Things are even worse when it comes to cybersports and emerging sports. Regulation there is close to non-existing and decentralized oversight makes it way easier for bad actors to influence results and stay undetected. You simply send some Bitcoins or stablecoins to a random anonymous address and that’s it, you can influence the results and never get caught.
Governance and Corruption
If doping and betting are symptoms, poor governance is the disease and disaster at its core. When fans see another bribery scandal in FIFA, they simply lose a portion of their trust and attitude to their beloved sports. Why watch games when there’s a chance that final results are paid for not earned by sweat and blood.
Federations have so much power over funding and event hosting rights so there’s always room for corruption. Why not sell the hosting rights to one of the Gulf countries for a generous donation not just to the federation but your personal wallet, right? Wrong! Without transparency, the future of sports is unclear. As long as athletes receive minimal support while executives thrive in bureaucratic privilege, chances are high that we are gonna miss raising stars because of this.
We need reforms and we need it now. A reform that will stay on principles of transparency for all parties and accountability for those who make decisions. All federations should be pushed to publicly disclose their financial flows and bidding processes to make sure the game is fair for everyone involved. There should be Independent ethics committees and whistleblower protections because without it we will never change anything. People will just be frightened to tell the truth because of a fear of losing their jobs. We also need to include athletes and coaches in governance decisions, ensuring those most affected have a voice and the right to change something they don’t like.
