While ru­mours and whis­pers of match-fix­ing in foot­ball is not a new phe­nom­e­non as they have been around for decades, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s foot­ball—and I dare say sports in gen­er­al—was still rocked last week by al­le­ga­tions of match-fix­ing in lo­cal foot­ball.

The glob­al il­le­gal sports bet­ting and match-fix­ing is claimed to be an eye-wa­ter­ing tril­lion US dol­lar in­dus­try. The num­bers are sig­nif­i­cant.

Like all as­pects of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, it’s flawed think­ing to take it in iso­la­tion. While for some, it can be said to be pure greed, in many cas­es, there are so­cio-eco­nom­ic trig­gers that fos­ter crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. The temp­ta­tion to suc­cumb to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty has un­ful­filled ba­sic needs at its core.

There are cred­i­ble re­ports which sug­gest that in­ter­na­tion­al golfer Phil Mick­el­son ran up a bil­lion USD gam­bling ad­dic­tion.

Al­le­ga­tions of match-fix­ing must be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and giv­en ur­gent pri­or­i­ty. It’s im­por­tant to pro­tect per­sons es­pe­cial­ly the young, im­pres­sion­able and vul­ner­a­ble from un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed ac­cu­sa­tions that may be vin­dic­tive or ma­li­cious.

The court of pub­lic opin­ion doesn’t em­brace due process and prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice—the bur­den of proof and the stan­dard of proof aren’t im­por­tant and re­spect­ed. It is im­por­tant, there­fore, that al­le­ga­tions of match-fix­ing are in­ves­ti­gat­ed to de­ter­mine if there re­al­ly was a vi­o­la­tion.

De­nial isn’t a sen­si­ble op­tion. We must ac­cept that match-fix­ing and il­le­gal sports bet­ting are up­on us. If we don’t take it se­ri­ous­ly now and take the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion it can very well be­come a full-blown cri­sis, sim­i­lar to what we are now fac­ing with the epi­dem­ic of gun vi­o­lence that was once ig­nored and is now a cat­a­stro­phe.

Travis Mul­raine said dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view that he is an “open whistle­blow­er” and it’s up to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to act on his ‘rev­e­la­tions’ and launch a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion at the very least.

At the very least there is need for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. And it’s not on­ly foot­ball that is now un­der scruti­ny. Crick­et re­sults—in par­tic­u­lar the CPL crick­et re­sults—have gen­er­at­ed spec­u­la­tion. Un­war­rant­ed some will say.

How­ev­er, it high­lights in the mod­ern world of sports en­ter­tain­ment the im­por­tance of hav­ing in place a rig­or­ous an­ti-match fix­ing and com­pe­ti­tion ma­nip­u­la­tion frame­work that is ro­bust, trans­par­ent and ac­count­able.

With the grow­ing spon­sor­ship in­volve­ment of le­gal sports bet­ting com­pa­nies, it stands to rea­son that there will be more scruti­ny and tech­nol­o­gy will be de­ployed to iden­ti­fy and flag ir­reg­u­lar bet­ting pat­terns that are signs of re­sult ma­nip­u­la­tion.

If prop­er­ly im­ple­ment­ed, the pos­si­ble im­pact of these prac­tices could be far-reach­ing not on­ly for the sport but to al­so lim­it and pro­tect the po­ten­tial dam­age that can be done to a play­er’s rep­u­ta­tion and char­ac­ter.

Sports are sup­posed to bring out the best in us and the con­cept of fair play is cen­tral to the con­duct of sport­ing events and our ul­ti­mate en­joy­ment of them.

While it is said that ‘Mon­ey talks and ****** walks’ and that ‘he that pays the piper calls the tune’, un­reg­u­lat­ed avarice will even­tu­al­ly ‘kill the goose that lays the gold­en egg’.

Match fix­ing makes crim­i­nals rich­er at the ex­pense of vul­ner­a­ble ath­letes, of­fi­cials and coach­es so it is im­per­a­tive that sports be pro­tect­ed to keep its im­age clean and make it sus­tain­able and pos­i­tive for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Sports played fair­ly and on a lev­el even play­ing field with all com­peti­tors giv­ing their ab­solute best are the core val­ues of in­tegri­ty in sports, no mat­ter the ul­ti­mate re­sult.

Match-fix­ing is a form of cor­rup­tion and a se­ri­ous threat to the le­git­i­ma­cy and cred­i­bil­i­ty of sports and the sports in­dus­try. Do­ing noth­ing and act­ing as if ‘we are too small for that to be tak­ing place here,’ on­ly em­pow­ers the match-fix­ers.

If T&T is to de­vel­op an eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able sports in­dus­try that is a ma­jor sports hub and des­ti­na­tion we must have a ro­bust an­ti-match-fix­ing and an­ti-com­pe­ti­tion ma­nip­u­la­tion frame­work, struc­ture and process.

‘You can’t play mas and fraid pow­der.’