The Controversy Of Corruption In Sports

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Corruption: “The dishonest or fraudulent conduct by individuals, often involving bribery”. We all know it exists in society. We have heard about corruption in politics and elections. But now corruption is starting to take over sports too. There is only one reason behind this and it is down to money. Sports is a platform from which we can compete, we can achieve, be part of a team, win or lose. Sport’s is something played all around the world and is known to bring people together. As humans, we love physical activity so much that we have now made a lot of our favorite sports a profession. The world’s elite players emerge from countries far and wide to play in front of thousands and to entertain. We all think it is for entertainment, right? …show more content…

The best players often go to the teams that can offer them the highest paid contracts. That is not the player’s fault, it is in our instinct. If you had a job as a cashier at your local supermarket and a rival supermarket offered you the same position at their branch, but would pay you 5 dollars more per hour. Would you not take that job? Not only are they offering better contracts, wealthy clubs often offer big money deals to other clubs to be able to buy that player off them. These offers are usually too big to say no to. Take the example of J.R smith. Smith used to play for the New York Knicks basketball team based in New York. That is where he became a star, scoring many points and often winning the games on his own accord. Other teams saw his potential and immediately tried to buy him. Knicks made it clear that they would not let him go. However, on deadline day of the 2014 basketball season, J.R Smith moved teams to Clevland for 12 million U.S dollars. The Clevland general manager was very reluctant with the sale, but “it was simply an offer that he could not refuse.” When you are a small team and offered money like that, it is almost impossible to say no. Smaller, less wealthy teams are now struggling to keep their best players to a point where the team could lose funding and be made redundant. Another sport which is notable for extensive pay is Lionel Messi, arguably one of the best footballers in the world, recently signed a new contract with FC Barcelona that gives him a whopping 37 million pounds a year. That equates to about 3.1 million a month, 770 thousand a week, 110 thousand a day and 4.5 thousand an hour. 4.5 thousand an hour? For playing football? These ridiculous salaries are further increased by the multi million-dollar endorsement deals that are given to these players. You might think this is a lot, but this does not compare to some of the other incomes of other sports stars such as Tiger Woods.

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