As increasingly vast amounts of television and sponsorship money continue to flood the world of sports, and the lines between sports and entertainment becomes even more blurred, the pressure on teams to win titles and championships continues to rise. Is there a breaking point in this scenario? If so, what will it be?
Two recent news stories highlight the depth of this problem and demonstrate the risks teams are willing to take to achieve success. The Houston Astros, the 2017 World Series Baseball Champions have been exposed for stealing signs throughout the 2017 season and part of the 2018 season, and Manchester City, the current two-time defending English Premier League Champions has been banned from European competition for two years (2020/2021 and 2021/2022) and fined 30 million Euros by UEFA, for violating the Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations and other licensing requirements.
Major League Baseball’s investigation found that in the ‘player driven’ scheme, the Astros were relaying the opposing pitching signals (by stealing the signs given by the catcher to the pitcher) from their video room by banging on a trash can to alert the hitter as to what type of pitch was coming. This information provides a significant advantage to the hitter who needs a full 0.25 seconds to react and hit a fastball which takes only 0.4 seconds from the point of release to reach the hitter. The players involved in the scheme were granted immunity for providing information to MLB while the team was fined five million dollars and has to forfeit first and second picks in the next two drafts.
The Los Angeles Dodgers players, who lost the World Series to the Astros in seven games, are justifiably furious with the weak apologies offered by the Houston players, and have even declared that the World Series was ‘stolen’ from them. Stealing of the opposing team’s signs (not only pitches) has always been part and parcel of the game, and some players, over the years, became well known for turning code-breaking into an art form. However, by combining this acquired information with modern day technology it does provide an unfair advantage.
Meanwhile, the Baseball Players Association finds itself between a rock and a hard place, having to defend the 40 Astro players as the 1,160 players from the other 29 MLB teams call for their heads. Many players are upset that the perpetrators of the scheme were granted immunity rather than being the recipients of heavy fines and significant bans. This is the worst scandal since the steroids era and many of those players have been ostracized and blocked from the Hall of Fame.
This is the second occasion that Manchester City has been fined by UEFA. In 2014 it was fined 49 million pounds and accepted restrictions on its squad for European play and incoming transfers. This second expensive lesson was sparked by a series of articles in Spiegel International, a German weekly news magazine, which alleged that City was manipulating the FFP regulations among other violations. The most damming claim was that the owner of the football club, Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, a billionaire from the UAE, had used a holding company in Abu Dhabi to funnel money to City sponsors based in Abu Dhabi who then rerouted the money to the football club as sponsorship, a clear contravention of FFP regulations.
The ban is likely to have a catastrophic effect on the club, which, in addition to the fines, will cost the club two years of European Champions League prize money, which has been estimated at 200 million Euros or more. Will the club be able to sustain its current payroll of expensive players? Highly improbable.
The high profile football club is expected to appeal its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) where further damning evidence might be brought to light, bearing in mind that City has essentially committed accounting fraud, considered a form of theft. This whole fiasco could unravel very badly for City with lawyers, accountants and the club’s directors having to answer tough questions.
As these two stories continue to grow over the next few months and more unpleasant information is revealed, the question must be asked, was it worth going to such lengths just to win? Where have the ideals of fair play and the spirit of the game vanished to?
