Corruption and Scandal in American Sports

Corruption and Scandal in American Sports

Author: Jimmy Sanderson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2023-08-24

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 1440878382

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Scandals about cheating and corruption have dogged amateur and professional sports in the United States since the nation's earliest days. This work examines the most infamous and consequential of these controversies and scandals both on and off the field. Authoritative Individual essays tackle notorious events in popular American sports ranging from the 1919 Black Sox scandal to revelations of sign stealing by the Houston Astros throughout their 2020 championship season, with stops in between to survey horrific sex abuse scandals at Penn State, Baylor, and Michigan State; steroid and drug scandals that brought down once-admired athletes like Mark McGwire and Lance Armstrong; and cheating/betting controversies that tainted individual players (Pete Rose), teams (Boston College, New England Patriots), and entire leagues (including the Little League World Series in 2001). But this work does more than just recount these events; it will also examine the cultural and economic pressures and forces that contributed to these events, as well as the lessons learned and steps taken (if any) to enact reform and help the sport recover.


Red Card

Red Card

Author: Ken Bensinger

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2019-06-11

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1501133918

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The definitive, shocking account of the FIFA scandal—the biggest corruption case of recent years—involving dozens of countries and implicating nearly every aspect of the world’s most popular sport, soccer, including the World Cup is “an engrossing and jaw-dropping tale of international intrigue…A riveting book” (The New York Times). The FIFA case began small, boosted by an IRS agent’s review of an American soccer official’s tax returns. But that humble investigation eventually led to a huge worldwide corruption scandal that crossed continents and reached the highest levels of the soccer’s world governing body in Switzerland. “The meeting of American investigative reporting and real-life cop show” (The Financial Times), Ken Bensinger’s Red Card explores the case, and the personalities behind it, in vivid detail. There’s Chuck Blazer, a high-living soccer dad who ascended to the highest ranks of the sport while creaming millions from its coffers; Jack Warner, a Trinidadian soccer official whose lust for power was matched only by his boundless greed; and the sport’s most powerful man, FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who held on to his position at any cost even as soccer rotted from the inside out. Remarkably, this corruption existed for decades before American law enforcement officials began to secretly dig, finally revealing that nearly every aspect of the planet’s favorite sport was corrupted by bribes, kickbacks, fraud, and money laundering. Not even the World Cup, the most-watched sporting event in history, was safe from the thick web of corruption, as powerful FIFA officials extracted their bribes at every turn. “A gripping white-collar crime thriller that, in its scope and human drama, ranks with some of the best investigative business books of the past thirty years” (The Wall Street Journal), Red Card goes beyond the headlines to bring the real story to light.


The Fix Is Still In

The Fix Is Still In

Author: Brian Tuohy

Publisher: Feral House

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1627310878

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In this long-anticipated sequel to his jarring takedown of professional sports, The Fix Is In, internationally recognized game fixing expert and scholarly authority Brian Tuohy further reveals the truths all sports fans need to know. Based on dedicated research and previously unreleased FBI files, each chapter exposes sports in a manner none of the major leagues’ broadcast partners would dare attempt. No sport or league is spared as Tuohy rips through not only the likes of the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and NASCAR, but also the PGA, UFC, eSports, horse racing, boxing, and both NCAA football and basketball. Along the way, championships are revealed as frauds, referees are exposed as accomplices, and legends are demolished. No sports fans should watch another game until they read this book and understand what truly is being presented as “pure” in America’s professional sports leagues.


The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino

The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino

Author: Michael Sokolove

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-09-24

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0399563296

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From acclaimed New York Times Magazine author Michael Sokolove, the full inside story of the NCAA's epic corruption scandal that exposed the rot and hypocrisy at the heart of big-time college sports. In 2017, the FBI revealed that it had reached the endgame of a sprawling investigation of large-scale corruption involving Adidas, Louisville and a host of other colleges, in which large payments were laundered from Adidas through a network of coaches and fixers to athletes and their families to induce them to go to Adidas-branded college programs. In short order, Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino (salary: $8 million) and athletic director Tom Jurich were fired, and fear, trembling, and some high-profile litigation swept through the world of bigtime college athletics. In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove not only lifts the rug on the Louisville scandal but also places it in the context of the much wider problem, the farce of amateurism in bigtime college sports. In a world in which even assistant coaches can make high-six and seven-figure salaries, as long as they keep the "elite" athletes coming in, shoe deals can reach into the nine figures, and everyone is getting rich but the players, can it be surprising that unscrupulous parties would pay athletes, creating in effect a black market in young men, a veritable underground railroad of talent? But a few bad apples are one thing. In THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO, Michael Sokolove shows an elaborate, systematic machine, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit payments and connecting at least one of the largest apparel companies in the world with schools across the country. The Louisville-Adidas scandal has revealed a web of conspiracy whose scope has shaken big-time college sports to its core, delivering a devastating blow to the fantasy of amateurism, of "scholar athletes." A Shakespearean drama of greed and desperation involving some of the biggest characters in the arena of sports, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF RICK PITINO is the definitive chronicle of this scandal and its broader echoes.


Black Market

Black Market

Author: Merl Code

Publisher: Harlequin

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0369718860

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From a former college basketball player and Executive at Nike, a "riveting" (Sports Illustrated) insider's account into the business of college basketball exposes the corrupt and racist systems that exploit young athletes and offers a new way forward For Merl Code, basketball was life. In college he played point guard for Clemson before turning pro. Later, when he pivoted to marketing, he found himself thrust into a startling world of profit-driven college basketball programs. He realized that the NCAA's amateurism rules could be used to exploit young athletes, and athletes of color in particular. Now, for the first time, Code will share his side of the explosive story of college basketball's dark reality—a system that begins with young talent in AAU programs and culminates at the highest levels of the NBA. Propulsive, urgent, and eye-opening, Black Market exposes the truth to offer a more just way forward for both colleges and athletes.


Cheated

Cheated

Author: Jay M. Smith

Publisher: Potomac Books

Published: 2019-11-01

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 164012246X

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In 2010 allegations of an utterly corrupt academic system for student-athletes emerged at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, home of the legendary Tar Heels. Written by UNC professor of history Jay Smith and UNC athletics department whistleblower Mary Willingham, Cheated recounts the story of academic fraud in UNC’s athletics department, even as university leaders focused on minimizing the damage in order to keep the billion-dollar college sports revenue machine functioning. Smith and Willingham make an impassioned argument that the “student-athletes” in these programs are being cheated out of what, after all, they are promised in the first place: a college education. Updated with a new epilogue, the paperback edition of Cheated carries the narrative through the defining events of 2017, including the landmark Wainstein report, the findings of which UNC leaders initially embraced only to push aside in an audacious strategy of denial with the NCAA, ultimately even escaping punishment for offering sham coursework. The ongoing fallout from this scandal—and the continuing spotlight on the failings of college athletics, which are hardly unique to UNC—has continued to inform the debate about how the $16 billion college sports industry operates and influences colleges and universities nationwide.


Football, Corruption and Lies

Football, Corruption and Lies

Author: John Sugden

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-12-04

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1134811675

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World football is in crisis. The corruption scandal engulfing FIFA is arguably the biggest story in the history of modern sport and a watershed for sport governance. More than a decade ago, John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson laid the foundations for subsequent investigations with the publication of Badfellas, a groundbreaking work of critical sport sociology that exposed the systematic corruption at the heart of world football. It was a book that FIFA and Sepp Blatter tried to ban. Now re-issued to combine the original contents of Badfellas with new chapters covering the current crisis, this book points to the ways in which FIFA’s new administration can learn from the Blatter story. The prequel traces the course of Sugden and Tomlinson’s game-changing investigation into FIFA, while the sequel updates the FIFA story from 2002 onwards and provides a chronology of crises and scandals within the FIFA narrative. Demonstrating the vital importance of critical investigative methods in sport studies, Football, Corruption and Lies: Revisiting Badfellas, the book FIFA tried to ban is essential reading for anybody looking to understand Blatter’s rise and fall.


Sports Scandals

Sports Scandals

Author: Peter Finley

Publisher: Greenwood

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0313344582

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Profiles significant scandals in U.S. sports, discussing violence, drugs, gambling, sex, cheating, regrettable commentary, and politics.


Global Corruption Report: Sport

Global Corruption Report: Sport

Author: Transparency International

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-05

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 1317443756

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Sport is a global phenomenon engaging billions of people and generating annual revenues of more than US$ 145 billion. Problems in the governance of sports organisations, fixing of matches and staging of major sporting events have spurred action on many fronts. Yet attempts to stop corruption in sport are still at an early stage. The Global Corruption Report (GCR) on sport is the most comprehensive analysis of sports corruption to date. It consists of more than 60 contributions from leading experts in the fields of corruption and sport, from sports organisations, governments, multilateral institutions, sponsors, athletes, supporters, academia and the wider anti-corruption movement. This GCR provides essential analysis for understanding the corruption risks in sport, focusing on sports governance, the business of sport, planning of major events, and match-fixing. It highlights the significant work that has already been done and presents new approaches to strengthening integrity in sport. In addition to measuring transparency and accountability, the GCR gives priority to participation, from sponsors to athletes to supporters an essential to restoring trust in sport.


Sports Scandals

Sports Scandals

Author: Norman Ferguson

Publisher:

Published: 2016-10-13

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781849539111

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Sport can bring out the best in us... and the worst. The high-pressure world of competitive sport has been shaken over the years by a series of major scandals. Involving drugs, sex, violence, money or pure and simple cheating, these incidents have ruined reputations, fuelled suspicions and shocked loyal supporters. Highlighting some of the most memorable cases from around the world, Norman Ferguson explores both recent and historic instances of dishonesty, betrayal and outrageous unsporting behaviour. Over 35 scandals, including: How cancer-survivor Lance Armstrong deceived his fans and cheated his way to seven Tour de France victories The World Cup bidding processes that brought the FBI to FIFA's door Figure skater Tonya Harding's sinister plot to break the leg of her rival, Nancy Kerrigan