Weekly Question

Are Cheats Ruining Sport ?

We have recently had a spate of high profile cheating going on in all kinds of sports, Justin Gatlin the sprinter received an 8 year ban for drugs, cyclist Floyd Landis who won the Tour de France has been petitioned due to alledged drug taking. Of course the most infamous was Canadian Sprinter Ben Johnson, who was also done for drugs. It seems there are very few sports that are in fact drug free, but I am not only talking drug cheats here, I am talking other kinds of cheating, and that is the sort of cheating that effects the other competitors, that of gamesmanship and in football (or Soccer) diving. The weekend match between Tottenham Hotspur and Portsmouth highlighted this.

What happened was the referee of the game, Chris Foy awarded a penalty to Spurs (tottenham) after Didier Zokora looked to be tripped in the penalty area by Pedro Mendes. But, TV replays clearly showed no contact on the player at all, it was a deliberate attempt to gain an advantage. Spurs scored form the resulting spot-kick and went on to win the match 2-1.

Zokora better off in a swimming pool?

This to me is the worst kind of cheating, indeed Foy later said to the Portsmouth manager in the dressing room, that he was very sorry and he had made a big mistake. If Portsmouth are relegated by 1 points this season, that one dive could have been the difference.

Am I alone in wondering what makes these so called professionals want to cheat? I mean a lot of them are pretty near the top of their games so why bother? In the States probably the most famous of all 'cheaters' were the Eight players of the Chicago White Sox, who alledgedly threw the world series. Shoeless Joe Jackson was named among the eight, but nothing was ever proven against him. Why did they do it, money basically. The film Eight Men Out tells their story.

The thing is cheating is rife in all games and sports, the only problem is it is not 'discovered' very often, and when it is it only seems to be the high profile stars and sports that seem to hit the headlines. On the other side of the coin, an athlete can be accused of cheating, be cleared, but then have the stigma hanging over them, where people will always think they are cheats. Those are the ones I feel sorry for, as they are the innocents but have had their careers blighted by false allegations.

Another of those that falls into the above category is Inzamam al Haq the Pakistani Cricket captain accused of ball tampering by umpire Darryl Hare. It turned out that he was found innocent, and Hare was the man that people began to suspect of racism. But the papers in the UK were full of Cheat and Disgraceful Behavior headlines, all aimed at al Haq. Now when he plays people are always going to tarnish him with the same brush. Although he is innocent and has been proven innocent the slur on his character remains.

So what to do about it.

1) Replays and fourth officials to be introduced into Football, if a player is tackled in the area and it looks like a penalty, the ref to stop play, but NOT award anything. After consulting the replay, a headset he is wearing will relay the information if it was a dive or a genuine penalty. If genuine a penalty awarded and the appropriate action taken. If a dive, the cheating player to be sent off and banned for a minimum of 5 games.

2) Names of athletes that fail an A sample not to be released until a B sample is checked, if this reveals drugs then the athlete to be banned for life, and name to be released. If negative, athlete to be monitored more closely for 5 year period.

3) All sports to have an anti-cheating committee that monitors games/matches for signs of possible cheating, any 'problem' areas should be monitored more closely over next few games. This committee must be completely independent and have no influences hanging over them.

Those are just 3 idea's to try and lessen the cheating that is going on in sports, but I don't think it can ever be ironed out.

One of the ones that really made me mad was this person below

Schumacher Clever Cheat????

Now our illustrious World Champion was 1pt ahead of British Driver Damon Hill in the 1994 World Championship, but was behind him in the last race of the season. If Hill won and Schumacher (spit) finished second, then it would be Hill who would become World Champion. But, Michael came up fast behind Hill and 'rammed' him from behind. Taking both of them out of the race, and therefore handing the World Championship to Michael Schumacher, his very first. He said afterwards he was trying for a difficult overtaking move, and simply caught Hill. I have seen the film a dozen times, and Schu is nowhere near in a good enough position to overtake.

I will leave it to you to decide whether he 'cheated' or not, I am sure you know what I think of the dirty, conniving scumbag though.

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