As every Sports fan knows our beloved games are never too far away from the wrong side of the law.
OJ Simpson and Ben Johnson can maybe most famously testify (no pun intended) to the fact that even at the pinnacle of sporting competition that no one is safe.
The incidents surrounding those two athletes were certainly contrasting in both their media coverage and of course their relative punishment.
This summer has seen a string of controversies that will affect sport for years to come, with some iconic sporting figures, particular in Great Britain had more than a blemish placed against their name.
Frankly the most despicable of all of which we have seen this summer is that surrounding Harlequins Rugby Club, and the ‘bloodgate’ affair that has shaken England Rugby and more importantly challenged it’s whole integrity.
Dean Richards, the former director of rugby at Harlequins, instigated on up to four occasions fake blood injuries to his players as a way of bending the rules, which would allow him to bring on another player as a replacement.
Richards ended up being caught in the act during the Heineken Cup quarter-final at the Stoop between Quins and eventual winners Leinster, as Tom Williams infamously winked towards the bench as he was escorted from the field with ‘blood’ pouring from his mouth.
Williams had inadvertently bitten the wrong side of the capsule leading to the ridiculous scene that followed as Williams was cut in the aftermath attempting to cover up this embarrassing episode.
The winger was banned, after appeal, for four months, while Richards escaped with a three-year ban.
For someone with the profile of Richards to only receive only a three-year ban is shocking in my opinion, but hopefully his reputation has been affected enough that his place in domestic and world rugby will forever be void.
The shame that rugby has encountered may never be fully overcome and given that it’s whiter than white image off the field has now changed will this just crank the focus on the sport up even higher?
In terms of trying to eek out who is breaking the rules lets hope the RFU start the clamp down as soon as possible.
The governing body have always treated post-match issues with immediate and impressive accuracy, and it now seems that football is trying to follow its lead.
Eduardo, the Croatian striker has recently been charged with simulation after Arsenal’s Champions League-qualifying tie with Celtic.
The attacker has been banned for two matches for the offence, which was dealt with after the match in which Eduardo dived to win a penalty.
The incident was scrutinised in the press to the extent that FIFA decided to act upon the episode with harsh results for the Gunners.
Arsene Wenger rightly confronted FIFA about the way they had conducted themselves in the matter, and called for a level of consistency to be introduced.
Now it’s unclear at this point whether FIFA will act upon every bit of simulation, but if they are it’s a huge move towards irradiating a poison that has attempted to destroy our beautiful game for over a decade.
Everyone pinpoints that foreign takeovers and ridiculous transfer fees are destroying our game when in-fact right in-front of us week after week we see people we call footballers sending the wrong message out to young players all over the world but petulantly diving to gain an advantage.
In the English game at least it seemed that at first foreign players were only to blame, but now the shameful act has spread to some of our home-grown players such as Wayne Rooney and Joe Cole.
Neither have ever been pulled up on the act, and maybe it will take a harsh ban from the Premier League or the FA to finally bring diving to the forefront of people’s minds.
FIFA haven’t stopped there however, and after Lord Stevens’ investigation into transfer dealing in this country, the world football governing body have come down hard on the first of sure to be a number of illegal transfer dealings.
Chelsea have been the unlucky one’s on this occasion after being convicted of inducing the departure of Gael Kakuta from Lens in 2007, and as a result being banned from any transfer dealing in the next two transfer windows.
In fairness the London club have been made an example of, in what is a unique punishment for an offence that has rarely been encountered before in world football.
However this decision is sure to open the floodgates of cases in which clubs believe their players have been illegally tapped up.
Le Havre and Crewe Alexandra have both reported incidents of a similar nature, with Manchester United the centre of the French clubs complaint over the transfer of Paul Pogba.
The Premiership Champions have predictably gone on record denying the accusation, and have threatened the French side with legal action if there is a repeat of the claim.
This could be seen as a way to make the Ligue 2 club drop their accusations before FIFA start to investigate the issue, with Le Harve’s motive maybe slightly affected by Chelsea’s punishment last week.
Even if they’re not guilty on this occasion United have continually been linked with illegal transfer dealings, none more so than that of Dimitar Berbatov, which in many peoples mind has been forgotten about despite the public nature of the crooked transfer.
A can of worms has certainly been opened by FIFA on both counts of simulation and illegal transfer dealings, and it’s left to be seen whether they can sort out this desperate situation.
As ever it seems that no sport can hide away from controversy, and on Golf’s European Tour one of Europe’s Ryder Cup heroes from last year was caught up in an incident that affected his chances of winning one of the tours more prestigious events.
Ian Poulter experienced an overeager cameraman during his final round at the French Open where he went from a tournament contender to outsider after a bogey five in which he hit into a water hazard after an ill-timed camera click.
The Englishman has gone on record saying that he’ll never attend the event again after an incident that he claims ended his chances of winning the event.
But sometimes winning an event will never end the controversy, and as for South African Caster Semenya opinions over her gender will seemingly never go away.
The athlete burst onto the scene this year by first qualifying for the South African team for the World Athletics Championships in Berlin and then winning the Women’s 800m final in convincing fashion, but because of her sudden emergence the IAAF want her to take a gender test to prove this claim.
What’s worse is that the problem has been brought up and played out for all the world to see and for Semenya, an up till now innocent human being, the last few weeks must have been torturous.
Governing bodies have always been seen to come down hard on athletes caught cheating, but the moment one excels on the world stage to the extent that Semenya has, suddenly it must be through unlawful means and not through simple hard work.
But sometimes hard work just isn’t enough especially when in swimming at least technology is holding back the development of the sport rather than letting it grow.
I’m of course talking about the recent ban of Hi Tech swimsuits, which has blighted this summers Swimming World Championship’s, and effectively made the last 18 months of competition null and void.
Since 2008 a new suit with 100% polyurethane was introduced and immediately world record’s started to be smashed.
In-fact 135 records have been broken since the suits introduction, but at the beginning of 2010 they will be banned after the unprecedented impact they’ve made in the sport.
Some experts have even called for an asterisk to be put against any world record broken with one of these Hi Tech suits, deeming any record produced in them almost worthless and tarnished by this breakthrough technology.
It seems then that even with this new technology that the sport has in-fact been going backwards, and in effect the athletes have been cheated by the vast technology these suits possess.
Rebecca Adlington, a double Olympic champion from Beijing was one of the few to retain her 50% polyurethane suit from the Beijing Olympics, and she was only able to pick up a Bronze in the World Championships as her rivals excelled in the now outlawed suits.
Adlington’s choice is a noble one to hang on to her original suit, but maybe a naïve one if she had any ambition of following her Olympic gold with World Championship gold.
However a Bronze against a field full of athletes wearing the illegal suit must give her some encouragement, and when the suits are finally prohibited her advantage over the field could well be larger than it was in Beijing.
The Brit will eventually prosper over these rule defying suits, but like so many rule breakers in our sporting society they more often than not get their comeuppance.
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