The last few weeks have been awash with news of corruption in sport. In North America, the focus has been on the indictment of former All-Star baseball pitcher Roger Clemens on charges of perjury. He has benn accused of lying to a Congressional committee with regards to accusations that he was an avid steroid user beginning in the summer of 1998 (during his Cy Young award winning season with the Toronto Blue Jays).
Meanwhile, the rest of the world has been captivated by the investigation into allegations of 'spot-fixing' (i.e., conspiring to produce a particular result at a pre-determined point in a match) by three members of the Pakistani cricket team: the captain Salmon Butt, mercurial bowler Mohammed Asif, and teenage phenom Mohammed Aamer. The story broke as a the direct result of a News of the World sting with footage that appears to show a player agent agreeing to ensure that Asif and Amir bowl 'no balls' at certain points in the match. But this may be but the tip of the iceberg. The results of a series of test matches that took place in Australia earlier this year (one of which produced an amazing comeback by the Aussies) are also coming under renewed scrutiny.
What I have found interesting about these stories is how analysts and pundits have been attempting to explain them. The case of Roger Clemens is not exactly unique for baseball with numerous high-profile stars of the time having admitted to or been implicated with their use. But unlike some players who have come clean under legal questioning, Clemens landed in hot water by denying under oath that he had ever used performance enhancing substances, even as his former personal trainer and former teammate Andy Petitte independently provided corroborating testimony that refuted his denials.
But again, Clemens isn't the only ball player whose denials have later been found to be suspect (e.g., Raphael Palmeiro). Thus, while there appears to be some inconsistency in enforcement here, analysis has focussed on Clemens own personality traits--that could be generously described as 'ego-maniacal--to explain how the indictment--and potential for a two year jail sentence--became possible. Thus, we see the neoliberal preference to completely individualize responsibility--and even pathologize criminality--as a means of explaining a complex constellation of forces that contributed to unacceptable behaviour.
This is not to argue that Clemens is blameless, that he is a nice guy, or even that he has been misunderstood. Rather it it is to make a case that some focus must be placed on what made the steroid era in baseball possible--including the blind eye turned to performance enhancement by Major League Baseball and the Player's Union who were trying to increase attendance and revenue after the 1994 lock-out--as well as why other players who have been less than truthful have escaped any formal sanction--let alone criminal prosecution.
Explanations of the case of the Pakistani cricketers have been interesting in that they have combined neoliberal understandings of individualized behaviour with Orientalist readings of Pakistani culture. Thus, the narrative is one that goes something like this:
what do you expect when corruption is inherent to Pakistani culture? Ban all three of them for life to send a message that this kind of behaviour won't be tolerated.
Besides being inherently contradictory in its identification of cause and remedy, the narrative overlooks far bigger socio-economic issues such as the poor levels of pay for players on some national teams, the inextricable connections between cricket and gambling, or the potential influence of threats of violence against players and their families.
Moreover, there are interesting gender representations that come through the narrative as well. Unlike Clemens or numerous allegations that have been made against the English cricket squad where cheating (or 'playing against the spirit of the game') takes place for the purposes of winning, the Pakistani cricketers have been femininized because their cheating was not motivated by wanting to win. In other words, the alleged corruption was not motivated by an uncontrolled competitive spirit, but by a lack of it.
While these two stories have been attracting all of the attention, an even bigger story has gone relatively unreported in the mainstream press. Leaked documents have revealed that some Major League Baseball teams--including the Pittsburgh Pirates and Florida Marlins-- have been grossly under-reporting revenues, claiming poverty, fielding sub-par teams on the basis of supposed financial constraint and demanding public funding for new stadiums while secretly reaping signficant profits.
I suspect that the (alleged) fraud here will be blamed on a lack of regulatory oversight--much like the financial crisis--and that baseball franchises will eventually agree to implement a voluntary public financial reporting procedure with no liability or enforcement capability. But, much like the cases of Roger Clemens and the Pakistani Three, what helped to make the actions of these franchise owners possible are a nebulous assemblage of the logics of capitalism, social contexts, and related decisions. Jail sentences, life time bans, and/or better regulatory oversight only deal with the symptoms of the deeper problems engendered by the global economic culture and its associated relations of power.
Update 18/09/2010: and it seems to get even worse for Pakistan's cricket squad...
Photo credit: dennis (for the Roger Clemens photo)
