These are deeply troubling times for sport. Is dishonesty becoming the name of the games people play?

The question is disturbingly pertinent because of the escalating number of incidents involving allegations of wrongdoing, in one form or another, that are permeating the whole spectrum of the sporting world.

It is hard to find a sport left untainted. Well, we have yet to hear of corruption in croquet or skulduggery in synchronised swimming, but these days sleaze has become alarmingly widespread.

All too frequently sport is on the front pages rather than the back with lurid tales of fixes, bungs, doping, bribing, cheating, you name it.

At the time of writing, there is a court case going in London involving three Pakistani cricketers on alleged corruption charges; Wayne Rooney's father and uncle were among nine men arrested by Merseyside police investigating an alleged betting scam in Scottish football when a particular player would be sent off (at odds of 10-1)  and we are awaiting a report following an investigation by the international amateur boxing body AIBA into alleged attempts to fix it so that boxers from Azerbaijan win gold medals in the 2012 Olympics. Not to mention the backhanders that have bedevilled FIFA and the last World Cup bid.

That word "alleged" is now one of the most frequently used in the sporting lexicon. There are dark clouds of suspicion everywhere and so much of it has to do with big money betting

If I was a gambling man, I'd like to wager that the biggest concern facing London 2012 is not terrorism, transportation foul-ups or an infestation of drugs cheats but the threat of major betting scams.


No wonder IOC President Jacques Rogge (pictured) has asked Games organisers to be especially vigilant in keeping a watch on betting patterns and anomalies in wagering, notably spot bets on the global market.

All competitors, coaches, officials VIPS, - even journalists - are technically prohibited from any betting activity betting associated with the Olympics under IOC "protocol".

The IOC have set-up a Swiss-base monitoring unit to gather information about potential gambling corruption and under the UK Gambling Act all British-based bookmakers are legally required to report any "irregular" bets.

But many major bookmaking firms now base themselves offshore and are not bound by the Act. Which, apparently, because of Parliamentary procedures, the Government cannot amend until after the Olympics.

So loopholes exist because the IOC do not have the right to monitor all bets placed during the Games.

Most of the betting scams originate in the Far East and I know from my own experience of working there just how devious the gambling syndicates can be. This is something of which the IOC are intensely aware.

If pressure can be put on cricketers to deliberately bowl no-balls, how easy would it be to bribe athletes to deliberately make false starts, or tennis players to double fault?

Another slice of sleaze involves more allegations of wrong-doing in snooker, the BBC commentator and former player, Willie Thorne, claiming that match-fixing is endemic and that the sport may never be rid of the taint of corruption. There have long been question marks over the green baize game with John Higgins' six months suspension for failing to report an attempt to fix one of his matches, the most recent high-profile scandal.

"Match fixing has always been part of snooker and I don't know how you can stamp it out," says Thorne. "There have always been games that you knew the result of before they began and I know that a couple of mine were bent from the start.  I don't think the authorities can ever stop it."

Of course, sport has never been all sweetness and light. Back in the days of the ancient Greeks there were plenty of dodgy goings-on too.

If you look back over the past few years, the incidents that have sullied sport are numerous, ranging from drugs cheating to a Formula One team instructing one of their drivers to deliberately crash into a wall and change the course of the race and the entire Grand Prix season.

While we watch the final enactment of the current Rugby World Cup, it is not easy to forget that two years ago Harlequins used fake blood to create a dodgy player swap and even in New Zealand a couple of weeks ago, England players were caught out trying to illegally change the ball.


Now we hear that the Wales coach Warren Gatland (pictured left) has admitted he considered cheating in the semi-final against France by ordering a player to fake injury. He decided against it, he says, but the fact he even thought about it a disquieting sign of these unsporting times.

And what is happening in cricket, well, just isn't cricket. During a one-day game between India and Pakistan, some £650 million ($11 billion/€745 million) was bet in the city of Mumbai alone. It is estimated that in the India subcontinent the betting industry is worth £40 billion ($63 billion/€46 billion) a year.

Much of the corruption that has already been exposed in major sport is just the tip of the iceberg.  Moneymaking scams unquestionably are prevalent and the opportunities of cashing in on novelty bets, like the number of no-balls bowled, red cards issued and easy pots missed are copious and usually untraceable.

And we haven't even touched upon the rigging of horse races.

When the esteemed Clare Balding (pictured) once sniffily dismissed boxing as "dirty and corrupt" the phrase pots and kettles immediately sprang to mind.


Has there been a more crooked sport than horseracing? History suggests not.

Ok, so pro boxing may have had its share of shady dealings in the past, most notably pre-war when the Mafia virtually ran the sport in the United States but as I have written here before in the half century I have been at ringside I am convinced I have never seen a fixed fight - and I am one of life's natural cynics. Mismatches yes; but no contrived "dives".

However, I do reckon I have seen racehorses pulled and at least one Grand Slam tennis final [in Paris] when it was evident that a player went "into the tank".

Inevitably, it is the massive influx of money that has totally changed the face of sport.  There's that old Yorkshire saying, "Where there's muck, there's brass"; now it seems to be a case of "Where there's brass, there's muck."

Fancy a bet?

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.