Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Series editor’s preface
- Author’s preface
- one Introduction: just men fighting?
- two A criminological history of sport
- three Celebrity and corruption: case studies of sports scandals
- four Game of two halves: mainstream criminological theory and sport
- five The second half: critical criminological theory and sport
- six Red card: sport, justice and social control
- seven Retraining: crime prevention and desistance through sport
- eight Conclusion: no such thing as crime, no such thing as sport
- Cases and legislation
- References
- Index
three - Celebrity and corruption: case studies of sportsscandals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Series editor’s preface
- Author’s preface
- one Introduction: just men fighting?
- two A criminological history of sport
- three Celebrity and corruption: case studies of sports scandals
- four Game of two halves: mainstream criminological theory and sport
- five The second half: critical criminological theory and sport
- six Red card: sport, justice and social control
- seven Retraining: crime prevention and desistance through sport
- eight Conclusion: no such thing as crime, no such thing as sport
- Cases and legislation
- References
- Index
Summary
Kietlinski (2011) suggests that the rise in popularityof women's sports, including sumo and baseball, inJapan may be due in part to the curiosity ofspectators but also to some extent in reaction tocorruption in the men's games. As we shall see, themajority of the scandals examined below involvemen.
Rojek (2004) looks at many aspects of celebrity, butwisely offers no definition of the term. In his workon celebrity, crime is afforded more attention thansport, although the case of O.J. Simpson involvesboth. According to Rojek, celebrity must at leastinvolve notoriety and glamour. Neither does hedefine scandal, although Hughes and Shank (2005)examine what it might mean for commercial sponsorsto invest in the celebrity of sports stars only tosee their ‘stock’ fall when a scandal breaks.
Some scandals could be described as transient or‘local’. Hughes and Shank (2005) use Americanexamples; only the top two in their list, the BALCOlaboratory case and the accusations of sexualassault against Kobe Bryant, will be known to many.The BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative) lab caseinvolved the supply of a steroid,tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), nicknamed ‘the clear’ asit was undetectable at the time. When a test wasdeveloped to identify it, old samples were retestedand 20 were found to contain THG. Those implicatedin obtaining the illegal drug included baseball andAmerican football players, track and field athletesand a cyclist. A variety of charges – legal andsporting – were made against the athletes, withvarious degrees of severity and success. MarionJones had to return a number of medals and waseventually sentenced to six months in prison in 2008for perjuring herself in respect of drug use in the2000 Olympics and a cheque fraud carried out in2006. She remains ‘disgraced’, ‘fallen’ (Yar, 2014).Rasmussen (2005) hints at a deeper scandal andquotes Danish scientists, Bengt Saltin and RasmusDamsgaard, to the effect that theperformance-enhancing effect of THG was unproved.‘Drugs cheats’ cheated?
Notwithstanding the accusations against him, Bryantcontinues to play for the LA Lakers and has nowregained many of the sponsors he lost at thetime.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sports CriminologyA Critical Criminology of Sport and Games, pp. 37 - 54Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016