Explaining Elite Athletes’ Corruption Behaviours: A Case Study of Doping and Match Fixing

This research utilised a qualitative research design to explore the reasons behind elite athlete corruption behaviours, specifically doping and match fixing.

The authors searched the websites of all 97 members of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations, Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations and Alliance of Independent Recognised Members of Sport, for doping and / or match fixing athlete sanction lists. The websites of 19 IFs outside the Olympic Movement, who are signatories of the WADA Code, were also consulted. 33 websites had a doping sanction list and 16 websites had a match fixing sanction list. The Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) database, which includes all the non-confidential CAS jurisprudence from 1986, was consulted to identify additional cases (four doping and one match fixing) not listed on the IF websites. Subsequently, Google was used to search for the athlete’s name and the relevant corruption scandal of ‘match fixing’ or ‘doping’. Search specificity was increased through additional, relevant terminology, for example ‘admission’, ‘testimony’ ‘statement’ and ‘interview’. Given that the study was focused upon intentional corruption behaviours (where an athlete knowingly engaged in doping or match fixing), confessions of accidental, elite athlete doping were not included in the final sample. The findings were recorded using an athlete admission database, which included athletes’ names, the corruption issue (match fixing or doping), year(s) the corruption took place, admission year, sport, nationality, sanction (if applicable) and data source links.The data was analysed using content analysis.