Editors’s Note: This story is taken from the blog insidethegames.com. It has received extensive coverage in the British press. Click here for more.
May 10 – Cameroon’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Issa Hayatou received a $1.5 million (£917,000) bribe to vote for Qatar 2022 to host the FIFA World Cup, it was alleged here today.
In the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, some 30 million viewers in the U.S. tuned into NBC broadcasts of the men’s gymnastics competition. The six man U.S. team won a bronze medal in the overall team competition.
The detection of drugs has a significant impact on athletes, and the detection organization called World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has been set up for many years, and WADA’s doping policy should be improved. The WADA was estalished in 1998, under the leadership of the International Olympic Committee to set up a global anti-doping agency’s policy. Since 1999 WADA has become the world-wide leader in international anti-doping activities.
The Ohio Supreme Court has rendered a decision that insurance companies from whom colleges and universities purchase liability policies that cover student-athletes while traveling and competing can in reality liable for damages sustained by the student-athletes themselves when transporting student-athletes in vehicles that are owned, borrowed or hired by the institution (Cohen, 2011).
The current ethical state of sports is volatile; marked by diverging ideas of what ethical behavior and conduct should be and the behaviors that are being demonstrated. Mixed messages about sport are sent to audiences when the value of winning is overemphasized, while sportsmanship takes a secondary role. Individuals operating within sports entities do not necessarily have clear guidelines regarding appropriate behaviors or personal conduct.
News media outlets have been full of stories over the past few months about problems with the NCAA Enforcement Staff and its handling of high profile cases brought before it. Whether it is the case involving Cam Newton and allegations of a “pay for play” scheme run by his father; Jim Tressel covering up for violations involving Ohio State football players, college football players’ run-ins with sports agents, or Connecticut’s men’s basketball program infractions, people have criticized both the process and the results.
The New York Mets ownership group is fighting efforts by the court appointed trustee representing victims in the Bernie Madoff criminal enterprise. The trustee, Irving Picard, is attempting to recover some $300 million he alleges the Mets’ owners took from Madoff’s investment enterprise, arguing that they should have known that the money was part of a massive fraud.
The Sport Digest has on two previous occasions reported on the financial problems of embattled Los Angeles Dodgers owner, Frank McCourt. McCourt’s actions in heavily mortgaging the Dodgers’ assets to purchase and to operate the club have been magnified by his long-running divorce case with his wife, Jamie McCourt.
The presence of large numbers of illegal immigrants in this country remains a touchy political issue. This issue even spills over into the world of sports. In 2010 the Arizona legislature passed a package of tough new immigration laws that the governor, Jan Brewer, quickly signed into law.
This week there have been a number of sports news reports concerning a recent letter sent by the U.S. Justice Department to Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA. The letter asks Emmert to respond on behalf of the NCAA to several questions relating to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) that currently is used to decide the NCAA Division I football championship each season.