Points for a ten slide presentation

Cricket Fix

Corruption, Political Patronage and the Need for Reform of the Pakistani Cricket Board (PCB)

Corruption in professional sports carries significant implications beyond the sport itself. Nations, regions and populations attach a great deal of importance to athletic competition and particularly to the notions of honor, integrity and sportsmanship. So recent revelations of match fixing in cricket have shaken the sport to its foundation.

Particularly, evidence of match fixing in Pakistan is forcing the sport to examine its conscience. According to the transcript emerging from an investigation into such events, gambling odds-makers are guilty of an historically persistent pattern of corruption. CEO of the International Cricket Council (ICC) between 2001-2008, Malcolm Speed indicates that "the same bookmakers who were there in the late 90s, who were corrupt then and were seeking corrupt players, they're still there."

Slide

Today, the game is troubled by mounting allegations that players have accepted payouts from these corrupt bookmakers in order to throw matches to their opponents. Most prominently in the headlines are recent charges that prominent London cricket agent Mazhar Majeed had been observed on tape by an undercover reporter offering bribes to players in the sums of 150,000(.

Slide 5:

Indications that this had occurred not only stunned the cricket community but also cast a glaring spotlight on the degree of political bias that infests the world of professional sports and especially in Pakistan. Even with glaring evidence against those embroiled in the most recent fixing scandals, formal response has not been forthcoming.

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The likeliest reason for that, the transcript describing the case reveals, is that in Pakistan, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has refused to take any action against those guilty of corruption. As the transcript reports, the PCB is itself an agency highly charged by political interests.

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Quite to this point, a cricket journalist named Zulqarnain Sheikh points out that "basically the difference of PCB from other boards is in Pakistan, the chairman has to be appointed by the president of Pakistan, so it's a totally political game. If you are politically strong, you can get a seat. If you are not, you can't be."

Slide 8:

This claim reveals that in Pakistan, the control board designed to provide oversight to cricket competition and regulation has, in fact, a far greater interest in the political machinations that empower it than in the protection of the sport's integrity and stability.

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