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Abstract
Sport betting is a lucrative business for bookmakers, for the lucky (or wise) punters, but also for governments and for sport. While not new or even recent, the deviances linked to sport betting, primarily match-fixing, have gained increased media exposure in the past decade. This exploratory study is a qualitative content analysis of the press coverage of sport betting-related deviances in football in two countries (UK and France), using in each case two leading national publications over a period of five years. Data analysis indicates a mounting coverage of sport betting scandals, with teams, players and criminals increasingly framed as culprits, while authorities and federations primarily assume a positive role. As for the origin of sport betting deviances, French newspapers tend to blame the system (in an abstract way); British newspapers, in contrast, focus more on individual weaknesses, notably greed. This article contributed to the growing body of literature on the importance of these deviances and on the way they are perceived by sport organizations, legislators and the public at large.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Many national gambling regulatory system apportion part of the benefits to sport (Switzerland and France) while other direct the benefits directly to specific policy items (various American states) or to the consolidated accounts of the State (Canadian provinces).
2. In this case, the term ‘Tanking’ is used.
3. In football, traditional bookmaker William Hill signed a three-year sponsorship deal with the Scottish FA to become the title sponsor of the Scottish Cup as of season 2011/2012 (Scottish Fa.com). Other online gambling companies, such as ‘bwin’ have sought creative ways to market themselves successfully by teaming up with elite football clubs such as Real Madrid, AC Milan, Juventus Turin and Werder Bremen. It is estimated that Real Madrid’s shirt sponsorship deal alone is worth €23 million per year. These sums are to put in proportion to the benefits generated by online betting.
4. Other approaches on the fans perceptions could be envisaged for a subsequent research.
5. While numerous contributions to the development of this methodology could be underlined, that of Neuendorf (Citation2002), seems to be the most complete.
6. The British tabloids would be a case in themselves, while l’Equipe could most likely be compared with the La Gazetta dello Sport in Italy.
7. For English, the terms ‘match-fixing’, ‘illegal betting’, ‘sport betting’, ‘online betting’ and ‘live betting’ were used. For French, articles are identified through the following terms: ‘matchs truqués’, ‘matches arrangées’, ‘paris illégaux’, ‘paris sportifs’, ‘match-fixing’, ‘paris en ligne’, ‘live betting’. Note that most of French articles were found with the keyword ‘matches arrangés’ (engl. for match-fixing).
8. Another element that could have been included is the distinction between reporting a scandal and breaking a scandal. It was deemed that the number of breaking news stories were too few to be meaningful in terms of this specific analysis.
9. In Le Monde, the two journalists that wrote most articles are specialized in politics and culture not in sport. In the Figaro, numerous journalists have written about the subject of football match-fixing but two, Cyrille Haddouche (8 articles) and Romain Schneider (9 articles) contributed the most. In the Telegraph, the presence of journalist Paul Kelso had an impact on the coverage of match-fixing cases. His revelations (linked to a number of scandals) led to numerous awards. Award nomination in the best sports story category at the Foreign Press Association awards in 2011 and he won as Sports News Reporter of the year at the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards in 2012.
10. In 2011 and 2012, a number of former football-related actors were arrested for match-fixing. They were accused of having fixed a series of matches in lower division Italian football.
11. Calciopoli is a 2006 match-fixing scandal based in Italy that involved the clubs Milan, Juventus, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina. In 2011, Naples court issued the first conclusion that led to prison sentences for the former Juventus director and to numerous points being deducted as well as fines for the clubs involved and some relegation to lower leagues.
12. Operation VETO was an investigation by Europol on match-fixing (2011–2013) touching some 380 football matches in 15 countries and involving 425 match officials, players and other actors. The events were linked to bookmakers in Asia.
13. Another category of sport-related articles that is also critical of sport are those related either to doping or general governance issues of sport institutions.