Cheating in Sport

I wrote this piece just before the 2006 World Cup - before Zidane's headbut, Wayne Rooney's sending off, and all the cricket ball-tampering allegations. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Sport's Programme.
Download sportscheat.rtf [8KB rtf]

Comments

[Johnny Centreback]

Nigel, nice piece. Regarding the blog intro to your Radio 4 Sports Ethics transcript, I am curious about how in your mind the Zidane and Rooney incidents NOW fit into your argument about cheating in sport. Perhaps you see it as I do--that both Zidane and Rooney were reacting to being cheated against. Two gifted players who were being denied an opportunity to use their ample talents took justice into their own hands. While their uses of violence were unsavoury, they clearly felt a desire to punish those who were cheating against them when the authorities (the referee and the game's governing body FIFA) could not and did not do the correct punishing. In both cases, the ones doing the cheating, the breaking of the rules, were victorious, and FIFA's tournament lost two of its best players...