Match Fixing And The Suspension Of Disbelief

Revelations that games involving Manly, Souths and Parramatta are the target of an investigation by NSW police over claims of match fixing are another blow to the NRL’s reputation. While these allegations are yet to be substantiated the damage to the game has largely been inflicted, writes Jarret Filmer.

At its core, being a sports fan requires a massive suspension of disbelief.

Sports fans live and die on their team’s performance, riding the ups and downs of their team’s fortunes like a roller coaster. Pseudo-intellectual haters will often dismiss sport as nothing more than grown men playing a child’s game, a frivolity that is given an undue importance in our society. On a superficial level they are right – professional sport is an entirely ridiculous activity. Sport is only powerful because the fervour and passion that fans pour into it, identifying with its tribes and living and dying on the outcome of their favourite team. Sports is a secular religion, full of heroes and villains, given power by the strength of its believer’s faith.

The biggest leap of faith sports fans make is the belief that the people on the field care as much about the outcome of the game as the people sitting in the stands. The uncomfortable truth is that they don’t, at least not in the way that sports fan do. Players care about their performance on a professional level simply because it is their job. They want to do well, showcase their abilities and play well enough to get another big contract to take care of their family. For a sports fan a bad loss will ruin their entire week. For a player a bad loss is simply a bad day at the office. Fans live and die on the outcome of a game that they aren’t involved in. Players want to play well enough to keep the cheques rolling in.

For fans to invest their hopes and dreams into the outcome of a game they have no ability to influence they need to believe the players care about the outcome in the same way they do even when most evidence points to the contrary. Deep down sports fans know that this isn’t true but they manage to convince themselves it is so they can keep believing. This is the essential lie that is the price of admission of being a sports fan.

The merest suggestion of match fixing pops this balloon. Match fixing means that even the pretense of the outcome being important is less important than another payday is impossible to believe. Fans need to believe that players are living and dying on the result of the game – without that belief fans lose their affinity with the players and the game becomes entirely trivial. Match fixing isn’t just a perversion of the integrity of the game – to many it is an act of sacrilege.

Recent experience has shown that if the allegations are handled correctly then they can be more of a glancing blow rather than a knockout punch. Cricket has been rocked by a series of match fixing scandals but is still going strong even though the proliferation of frivolous T20 leagues means the game is probably more exposed to match fixing than ever.

League has had its own brush with spot fixing when Ryan Tandy was convicted of spot fixing during a Bulldogs vs Cowboys game in 2010. Tandy was found guilty of deliberately giving away a penalty to manipulate the first scoring play of the game. Subsequently he was banned from the game for life. At the time the incident was as little more than the corrupt actions of a lone malignant and not indicative of widespread corruption throughout the game. Tandy later died of a drug overdose.

Players implicated in match fixing need to be banned for life – it’s the only way the NRL can preserve any pretension of integrity. It’s equally important that the NRL learns the lesson of the Ryan Tandy tragedy and ensures that any player that has the ultimate sanction levelled against them receives the right kind of support to move on with their life. Any players that have fallen under the sway of match fixers obviously have more going wrong with their life than simply throwing a game of league.

If the charges are substantiated the game needs a plan to move forward. The NRL has to ask some hard questions of itself – gambling interests have become so firmly entrenched in both game day broadcasts and the promotion of the game it is almost to be expected when players become involved with the shadier elements of the gambling industry. The NRL can’t be surprised when their players fall under the sway of dubious characters when the game itself does so much to promote the industry they are involved in.

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Players also need to be made more aware of their responsibility to uphold the reputation of the game and realize that consorting with convicted murderers and black listed gamblers threatens the reputation of the game and their ongoing livelihood. League has always been surrounded with more colourful characters than a Damon Runyan short story but these types of insidious forces have an unfortunate tendency to seep into the foundations of the game. It is impossible to force players to completely repudiate their entire background but they need to be made aware of the consequences of associating with some of these lowlifes.