Pro sports devalued by match-fixing scandals

Former South Korean international Choi Sung-kuk was among 47 professional footballers who were hit with lifetime bans by the K-League last year for their involvement in match-fixing schemes.

It wasn’t long ago that professional sports in Korea seemed ready to shed its reputation as lovable money-losers and break out as lucrative industries. But then a slew of match-fixing scandals that blew up across the top competitions in football, volleyball and baseball robbed them of their innocence and aura of unpredictability, and left the leagues looking like, well, just plain losers.

Alarmed by rising public anger over the murky connections between players, gamblers and match-fixing middlemen, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Tuesday announced its second set of measures in less than a month aimed at purging the games from manipulation.

The ministry’s plans include strengthening monitoring at all levels of competition from amateur to pro and clamping down harder on illegal gambling websites. Such moves, however, weren’t enough to impress critics who say government officials are applying a band-aid to a gaping wound.

The K-League, the country’s top professional football division, slapped lifetime bans on 47 players last year, a list headlined by former South Korean internationals Choi Sung-kuk and Kim Dong-hyun, following a criminal investigation on match fixing in the sport. Two players who were linked to wrongdoing committed suicide before the probe was finished. A disgraced Choi is attempting to resume his playing career in Macedonia.

The mess spiraled into news in the New Year. While investigating a dozen or so volleyball players found to have engaged in max fixing over the years, prosecutors in Daegu said they detected similar activities in baseball, the country’s most popular sport by far.

Moon Sung-hyun, a pitcher for the Seoul-based Nexen Heroes, has already revealed that he was approached to take part in a match fixing scheme in 2010, but rejected the request. Investigators are planning to summon Park Hyun-joon and Kim Seong-hyun, star pitchers for Seoul’s LG Twins, this week to question them over suspicions that they colluded with fixers.

The nature of baseball makes it difficult for a pitcher or two to manipulate the outcome of the game, but they can still influence gambling results as bets are often made on balls and strikes, prosecutors said. Park and Kim have both denied the accusations against them.

Government officials are obviously bothered by the controversy spreading to baseball and reaching a fever pitch. Lee Yeong-shik, an official from the culture ministry’s sports division, was concerned that the intense media coverage is prompting the public to jump to conclusions without solid proof.

But a greater concern is the damage to the image and integrity of the sports, both as games and businesses, which some believe could be irrevocable. Asked whether the current match fixing crisis is devaluing Korean professional sports, Kim Chong, a professor of sports business at Hanyang University, said “absolutely.”

“There is so much more on line than just the future of sports as a business and it would be wrong to compare these illegal sports betting activities with something like stock manipulation, where the culprits and victims are isolated,” Kim said.

“Sports are the only spot in our society where innocence has any meaning. The damage to innocence is crucial as the core entertainment value of sports is based on fans being encouraged to expect the unexpected. A failure to purge the leagues from fixing and regain the public’s trust could sow the seeds for an existential crisis in these sports.”

The timing of the betting scams couldn’t be more frustrating for the baseball and football leagues, which finally have products convincing enough to fill stadiums with ticket buyers.

Professional baseball attracted more than 7 million spectators last season, according to the Korea Baseball Organization, the league’s governing body, representing a significant jump from the 2.99 million in 2001 and 3.65 million in 2005. Korea’s impressive showing in international tournaments such as the Olympics and World Baseball Classic has clearly converted more people into believers that they are watching world-class athletes.

Football has long been the ugly sister to baseball and it seemed at one point that the league would never be able to build on the euphoria generated by Korea’s magical semifinals run in the 2002 World Cup held at home. However, attendance at K-League matches has been picking up in recent years thanks to the competitive parity between teams and the league successfully promoting regional rivalries.

The K-League said it drew 2.71 million spectators for its 270 regular season matches last year, which represented more than a 3 percent growth from 2010, despite the eruption of the match-fixing scandal.

Despite the jump in popularity, the baseball and football leagues have yet to become reliable as business models.

Of the six baseball franchises that reported their financial status to the Financial Supervisory Service last year, Seoul’s Doosan Bears, Daejeon’s Hanwha Eagles and Busan’s Lotte Giants were the only teams that reported profits. Gangwon FC was the only team among the 12 football squads that managed to make money last season.

This confirms that sports franchises are often not much more than glorified billboards for their corporate sponsors.

“There were times when we joked that running a baseball team was part of our corporate social responsibility efforts,” said a former Hanwha executive who had been involved in front office work for the Eagles.

Both the baseball and football leagues are desperate to be taken seriously. It clearly doesn’t help that the widening match-fixing controversy is spewing new details every day.

The leagues clearly didn’t help themselves by being complacent. Yang Kyung-min, an all-star forward for Dongbu Promy of the Korean Basketball League, was suspended for betting on his own games in 2006, but was allowed to return for the playoffs. And critics blasted the K-League last year after it phased out its internal investigation for three months to reduce disruption to its regular season schedule.

“The wrongdoings are a hindrance to the development of sports as an industry. We need to focus on structural reform at every level, from schools that are at the core of the country’s amateur sporting scene to every organizations involved in managing players and operating leagues,” said Lee from the ministry .

“Aside of the new plans announced Tuesday, we earlier this year strengthened the national sports promotion act to strengthen the penalties on players, coaches and managers involved in match fixing. Operators of illegal betting sites could face up to seven years in prison and a fine of 70 million won, while those who bet on those sites could face up to five years in prison.

“The allegations that currently emerged were related to incidents that happened before the strengthening of the law, so it would be inaccurate to say that the measures aren’t working as prescribed.”

But it’s also true that there is no quick fix. It could be said that betting scams in sports is not just a Korean problem, but an international one, and therefore, would require an international solution.

The demand for match-fixing here has been generated mainly by illegal gambling websites, which were connected to the fixers and middlemen who contacted players.

According to the Korean Institute of Criminology, there are more than 1,000 of these online betting destinations currently operating. They combine for a market of 12.74 trillion won, seven times bigger than the 1.8 trillion won market generated by Sports Toto, the country’s only legal sports betting operator.

It’s hard for law enforcement authorities to crack down on these websites when their servers are based in countries such as China, Vietnam and the Philippines. Asia-based gambling sites were also linked to the match-fixing scandals that recently rocked European football and international cricket.

“What we need now is a firm legal framework to detect and destroy illegal sports betting and this would require a comprehensive effort from leagues, law enforcement authorities and government organizations. The problems have become too big to let the leagues handle them by themselves,” Kim said.

“Eliminating match-fixing has to be an international effort. We need to cooperate with countries like China and Vietnam and sever financial transactions made between online gambling sites and their users, which are made through cyber bank accounts and other hard-to-track methods.” <Korea Times/ Kim Tong-hyung>

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