This book offers historical and contemporary international analysis of fraud and corruption in sport, including a diverse range of cases from the sporting world including football, cricket, horse racing and boxing.

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.

This book offers historical and contemporary international analysis of fraud and corruption in sport, including a diverse range of cases from the sporting world including football, cricket, horse racing and boxing.

Corruption in the sport industry is a pervasive issue that threatens the integrity of sport as an institution. From doping and match-fixing to money laundering, corruption should be a concern to anybody interested in sport policy, management, governance, or ethics. This is the first book to explore the complexity of sport corruption in terms of its conceptualisation, causes, consequences, and reform. The first part looks at the concept of sport corruption, while the second examines the causes of sport corruption from individual, organisational, industry-wide, and longitudinal viewpoints. The third part discussed is the consequences of sport corruption and its impact on the global sport industry. Various approaches to regulatory reform are considered in the next part, as well as the challenges of combatting corruption in the sport industry. The final part assesses the current state of literature in this area and suggests opportunities for future research. Drawing on multidisciplinary case studies from across the world, this is a seminal contribution to the academic study of corruption in sport. It is important reading for all students and scholars of sport management, business, criminology, and law.

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.

A portion of the proceeds from Front Row Seat will be donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease research and the Positive Coaching Alliance to help coaches lead and develop America's future leaders..America's youth sports industry has changed dramatically over the past two decades. The days of playing for your town or local YMCA team, be it baseball, soccer, basketball or lacrosse were coming to an end. There would soon be an arms race - how do I get my child on the best travel team, should I hire a personal trainer, which college showcases should my child attend, should I subscribe to a recruiting service, and so on. Youth sports had become big business.An opportunity presented itself to me to invest in a sports event business and, soon, other opportunities followed. Over the next five years or so, I was invested; personally and financially in the industry. My view and approach to the youth sports market was pretty simple - first and foremost, exceed customer expectations; deliver great experiences and value; and reinforce positive values and sportsmanship. With the advent of social media, our customers became our marketers; moms, dads and kids sharing our branded content on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, respectively. The founder of a youth sports company reached out to me and told me that he had heard good things about me and said he would like to get together and tell me more about his company. He seemed to know a fair amount about my investments and activities in the sports space. He was a bit vague about why he was contacting me, however, it felt like a good networking opportunity and you never know where meetings like this can lead. I had strong opinions about the youth sports market and a fully developed investment thesis - I was confident that there was tremendous opportunity both from an investment perspective and to provide customers with better-quality experiences. Perhaps this company would prove to be a good opportunity, a platform to execute the strategy. I agreed to meet with him. I could never have imagined what the next two years of my life would be like. I quickly found myself wrapped in a web of lies, cover-ups, and dealing with individuals driven by ego and greed. Never in my life did I think I would be dealing with an international criminal investigation led by the U.S. Department of Justice. I was fearing for my family's safety and fighting for the rights of our employees and customers all at the same time. If that wasn't enough, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.I had a front row seat to dozens of real-time business case studies; accounting issues; civil and criminal litigation; and my own path to acceptance and rediscovering what matters most.

THE STORY THAT BROUGHT DOWN FIFA'S SEPP BLATTER. 'With every page of this book, we see just why FIFA desperately needs a complete overhaul' - Sun When FIFA awarded the tiny desert state of Qatar the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, the news was greeted with disbelief and allegations of corruption. How had a country with almost no football infrastructure or tradition, a high terror risk and searing summer temperatures of 50C beaten more established countries with stronger bids? The story behind the Qatari success soon developed into one of the greatest sporting scandals of our time. And when the Sunday Times Insight team received a cache of hundreds of millions of documents from a whistleblower, the contents of the FIFA Files became a global sensation, unearthing the corruption that lay at the heart of the bidding process. Now in this remarkable new book by the Sunday Times journalists at the centre of the investigation, Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert, comes the most comprehensive account yet of what happened and who was involved. Above all, it explains why, despite all the evidence, FIFA continues to support Qatar - even to the extent of publishing an edited and abbreviated report into the process that was immediately denounced by its original author. Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, The Ugly Game is undoubtedly the biggest sporting story of our times. 'Never before has bribe-giving been documented in such graphic detail' - Independent