JOIN USA virtuous process needed to stop the evil
It is important to understand the genesis of fixing outcomes in sports to analyse the phenomenon better.
It is almost a universal principle that big money attracts crime and criminals. As the economy grows, property crimes and white collar crimes both inevitably grow. Hence every profit-making activity needs to put in place a regime of preventive and enforcement measures making dishonesty a high-risk and low-profit proposition.
The Indian Premier League or cricket in India in general, is a mega-bucks enterprise. But both the preventive and enforcement regimes appear inadequate to deter dishonesty and hence, cricket remains a potential ground for proliferation of white collar crimes including fixing of outcomes.
However, certain aspects of this problem are beyond the control of the cricket administrators. The betting industry for example. No enforcement agency in India has a fix on the volumes involved here. But it is a fact that betting syndicates have expanded their networks even to smaller towns in India. It is easy to infer that it has become an organised crime generating thousands of crores of rupees. There is no enforcement worth the name to regulate this activity.
It is in the nature of organised crime to maximise profits. In any form of gambling, fixing outcomes maximises returns. Hence there is a permanent temptation for competing betting syndicates to co-opt sportspersons to fix outcomes. This is inevitable.
Now comes the question of how to prevent or reduce the possibility of fixing outcomes in sports in general and cricket in particular. The simple answer is, it requires a virtuous cycle of processes and institution of an efficient regime by all the stakeholders concerned.
The primary requirement is investment of clean or good money to start with, in profit-making sporting enterprises. This is important. Bad money normally creates and breeds an atmosphere of general permissiveness and attitudes ‘where anything goes’.
There is also a case for reduction in disparity between the payments made to the highest ranked player and the lowest ranked player. It will most definitely require legalising betting industry and institution of a formal regulatory framework thereof. Finally, fixing outcomes in sports needs to be made a cognisable offence under the Indian Penal Code or under a new legislation.
The absence of even one aspect of the above requirements renders the process susceptible to fixing. This lesson should have been learnt by all concerned during the last fixing saga of 2000. However, the steps taken then were sub-optimal. The betting syndicates easily spot the faultlines, profile the players and attempt to lure them. However, unlike the previous fixing episode, it is my personal belief that the big and established players would normally resist the temptation, mainly because of the legitimate forums available to them to make good money.
Aberrations
Still, there will be aberrations due to individual proclivities.
Further, anti-corruption units in sports bodies, at best, will only have slight psychological deterrence on players because of the absence of legal instrumentalities of enforcement. Hence, the government enforcement agencies, especially the income tax department and the enforcement directorate, need to focus on sports as a potential area for white collar offences.
To conclude, comprehensive and holistic steps are needed to minimise the possibility of fixing of outcomes in sports. The solutions need to address both the causes and the consequences of fixing.
(MA Ganapathy is an IPS officer presently serving as a joint secretary
in the union ministry of home affairs.
He had probed the match-fixing scandal in 2000 during his stint in the CBI as Superintendent of Police).
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