It’s a strange & confusing time for sporting rules and fair play
The laws of sport are being questioned just as the first Enhanced Games take place
It’s been a tough few weeks for the rules of sport and the concept of fair play. There have been a number of recent controversial decisions regarding the laws of sport which often decide titles, relegation issues and much more. And how ironic that rules headlines have been created just as the inaugural Enhanced Games (where taking any kind of drug is legal) took place - but more on that later.
British football has taken centre stage in the rules debates this month, starting with the unprecedented expulsion of Southampton from the playoff tournament to decide which club is promoted to the English Premier League. The winning side among the four-teams can earn around £200 million by moving up to the EPL, but the Saints admitted illegally spying on three opponents this season, including one in the playoffs and that caused the shock decision, and got thrown out.
The legal experts said a points deduction and fine was likely, so being kicked out was a shock for Southampton who appealed against the “excessive punishment”. But filming another team’s training session is an alarmingly calculated crime, so the appeal failed. There was no real precedent. The only similar football case was at the 2024 Olympics when three members of Canada’s backroom were banned from football for a year after using a drone to spy on other women’s teams. The most famous other spygate scandal happened in the NFL in 2007 when the New England Patriots were heavily fined - as was their head coach Bill Belichick - and the club lost draft picks for illegally videotaping opponents. Southampton’s punishment may seem harsh given similar cases, but maybe it will deter this ever happening again in English football. Rules are rules, after all.
Even more talked about recently have been the arguments over the use of VAR (Video Assistant Referee) which has played a crucial end-of-season role in football’s title-winning and relegation battles. This system was introduced in 2019 to avoid games being decided by mistakes that were clear and obvious with the use of video replay. However, the word ‘assistant’ in VAR is being undermined as more and more referees’ decisions are being challenged and many overturned.
One single VAR decision virtually decided the Premier League title and relegation for West Ham in one fell swoop. The match between them earlier this month ended in a win for Arsenal as VAR overturned a very late Hammers equaliser. The overrule was tough to adjudicate and took many minutes because it involved several players pushing and shoving during a corner kick. The referee eventually saw a foul on the Arsenal goalkeeper and that cancelled the goal. The three points gained by the Premier League-winning Gunners and the one lost by West Ham proved crucial at both ends of the table. A “clear and obvious” decision it was not.
In an equally stunning case in the Scottish Premier League, a late-late VAR penalty decision in favour of Rangers against Hearts - for an iffy handball as two players leapt for a header - snatched the SPL title from the Edinburgh team.
The financial ramifications of these ruling are immense, let alone the emotional strain of players and fans. VAR was supposed to be about “serious missed incidents”, but the technology is now being used to micro-manage football games and almost every decision can be subject to minutes-long examination, so rules are under the spotlight.
The bigger problem is that, in most team sports, rules have been bent or broken for decades. How many throw-ins are ever taken from the correct spot in a regular football game? And let’s not talk about players ‘diving’ for a free kick or a penalty. If any goal is subject to VAR then why not every throw in or marginal foul? Football is fast-moving, active game where the interpretation of fouls, for example, has always varied. What looks like an innocuous tackle in real-time can appear to be an act of true violence when studied for many minutes on a TV screen and vice versa. The job of the referee may soon be almost obsolete and you could argue that VAR enforces all the rules and not just some of them.
If it’s about culture, then rugby union is the gold standard. A referee is very, very rarely questioned on the rugby field let alone chased by players (as in the bad, sad days of football a few years ago) and the sport has its own video replay system that is respected. It’s largely the same in cricket, American football and many other sports – respect for the rules is paramount and we need more of this.
Golf is a sport of integrity - as shown by Darren Clarke & Cameron Young
And I hate to always play the golf card at this point, but pro golfers still call a foul on themselves - this is the ultimate in adhering to rules. For example, American star Cameron Young called a one-stroke penalty on himself in a recent tournament - he lightly touched the grass with his club and inadvertently moved the golf ball. His admission of the tiniest guilt is praiseworthy and, for good measure, he still went on to win with his honour intact.
And what about Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke who, 10 years ago in the Irish Open (a title he was desperate to win), returned to his golf ball after a rain delay to find the heavy rough around it had been smoothed out by spectators. Clarke’s original lie was described as “like broccoli” and the trampling feet of the fans had meant he could suddenly hit a much easier shot. But, instead of taking advantage of a strange change in circumstances and luck, he simply chipped out onto the fairway, playing the kind of shot he would have faced before the delay. Now, if that’s not sportsmanship and fair play, I don’t know what is.
Interestingly, the subject of rules and fair play was central to a conference I attended in London earlier this month. The Foundation for Leadership through Sport event highlights included a presentation by author and academic Jonathan Duke-Evans about his book ‘An English Tradition’ which chronicled the history of fair play.
Jonathan noted how fair play descended from the concept of chivalry and was not confined to England (chivalry is a French word, after all). He said fair play is under pressure because of the amount of money now available in sports and there are so many examples of how rules are either broken or massaged to the point of cheating, from ball tampering in cricket to the dark arts of rugby scrummaging notwithstanding more modern rules issues involving club ownership and how much can be spent on players’ salaries or the question of trans women in any sport.
But, although fairness is aligned with the old Corinthian spirit and the days of the gentleman amateur, former England Test cricketer Vic Marks told the conference that it’s dangerous to think that “the good old days” of sport were different. “Everything wasn’t fair back then and actually fairness has increased because of the number of cameras (at elite sport).”
Sports journalist Paul Hayward said football was too easy a target when it comes to judging fairness because “abuse of football referees is not disguised and VAR now wants perfect justice, but perfect conduct is idealistic”.
And idealism and fair play are what have been lost with the staging of the inaugural Enhanced Games which pose the question: should the laws about drug taking (among the most important of all for the integrity of sports) be dropped. This tournament - that featured athletes taking banned substances such as testosterone, EPO and anabolic steroids - flies in the face of what everyone else is trying to do in sport. This one-night spectacle for swimmers, track athletes and weightlifters was said to be about proving how talent can be boosted and world records broken. In fact, only one such record fell (in the 50m freestyle swimming race), and claims that the event “changed the world” seemed hollow to traditional sportsmen and women. The $25 million in prize money delivered by Enhanced Games CEO Maximillian Martin (whose wealth comes from bitcoin – how fitting!) seemed more like the motivation to compete than any fancy ideals.
Almost all of the 42 competitors at the Games were enhanced, yet three athletes who were competing clean also won - so what does it all mean? Should the rules on drugs be abandoned? Well, think of Lance Armstrong and the world of cycling of over 20 years ago. If the authorities had held up their hands in despair and conceded “OK, everyone, take whatever you want” then how many riders would have suffered illness or even death? The sport still regrets the passing of Britain’s Tommy Simpson almost 60 years ago. This legendary rider, who was suffering badly from heat stroke and stomach issues during the Tour de France, took amphetamine and alcohol during, a combination that killed him.
The rules of sport achieve many things including protecting the health of the participants and they also both avoid chaos among competitors and help instil a culture of fair play. Meanwhile, the estimated 250,000 people watched the Enhanced Games live on YouTube and, in case those viewers missed the point, they were pushed towards the event’s website where they could buy athlete supplements and testosterone creams. The commercial audacity of it all is bewildering, yet it makes the notion of fair play and the need for rules even more treasured.