Thinking Ethics

Ethics and football - winning vs playing

Big brouhaha about yesterday's (November 18, 2009) world cup play-off between France and the Republic of Ireland. In case you missed the game, here is a description on the BBC website. Basically, one of the French players handled the ball, and it was not noticed by the referee. (We are talking about soccer for US readers)

My personal opinion, is that there is something called sportsmanlike behavior or conduct. It is a notion that is well understood by the general public (reference the many videos and articles on the net on « unsportsman like behavior ». There are large debates on ethics in sports, be it from performance enhancing drugs to judging. The opinion is that the money involved in sports today has made many strive for performance at any cost. As many sports men/women are idols for their fans, society would like them also to me role models. Somehow, this has slipped a bit in reality.

 

I don’t believe Thierry Henry did the handling deliberately. But he did know he did it, and that it would be shown on TV in the replay. So it was a case of « its OK as long as I am not caught ». Referees do make mistakes. In tennis the technology is providing instant replays and the players can ask for confirmation of a call. But sometimes you see a player change sides despite a call, conceding the point because he saw where it landed. And the commentator mentions it, and the public salutes the fair player.

 

Behavior in sports is not totally defined by the authorities,  so calling this a « moral » question is pushing it a bit far.  In this case – the player claims he did his job, and the referee should do his. And the referee missed it. There was no lying involved. No deliberate cheating. Given the stakes however, it would take a good deal of « moral courage » to self denounce oneself to the referee and give up the point (also face the hatred of a nation). This would only be possible if the team supported such a move, as well as the national federation. And frankly, it is not in the football culture. Launching discussions on the subject is the only way to help change the culture.

 

Bottom line, the game was more about winning than playing. Thierry Henry might be a good player, but he is not a good sportsman.

 

Culture and ethics

A lot of stories are coming out now about how the Chinese have organized certain things around the Olympics. Some of these cases would be unacceptable in our western society, but in China, where "face" is very important, it seems quite logical. For instance the little girl singing - who really wasn't - as the singer was deemed not cute enough, they put another face forward for the ceremony. There is nothing wrong with lip-synch, but it is the lack of transparency that is worrying, as well as not giving credit where credit is due.

There are also some stories going around about the fireworks, as seen on TV. Apparently, the  practice runs several days ahead were not just to get it right. They used images from the prior firework displays to "enhance" the TV transmission. We live in a world where virtual and real are sometimes merging. I can imagine that some people think there is nothing wrong with this. But we did think we were watching a live show. So again, lack of disclosure for sure.  But where does one draw the line? If applied to historical pictures, this would be called revisionism. Definitely a slippery slope.

Where I draw the line, is falsifying the age of the gymnasts - a birthday is a birthday. Changing the dates on the young gymnasts is cheating, and there is no cultural excuse for this. In their quest for a maximum number of medals, the Chinese have gone too far. Maybe they should get a medal in bending the rules.

Sporting ethics

With the Olympics on and the intensive doping tests, the BBC website has a huge spread on sporting ethics. Also here is a link to their usual sports page under ethics.

Olympic Games Charter

As the Beijing Olympic Games are almost upon us -I thought a reminder of the Olympic Games Charter was in order. On website here.

And the ethics commission of the International Olympics Committee can be found here.

Ethics and sports

Great reference site for ethics and sports on the BBC website here. It covers subjects like fair play, the drugs debate, the impact of cheating and the challenge of genetics.

More ethics and football

I received this message from Andrew Jennings :

I’m a little puzzled by your re-publishing of a press release from FIFA about it’s so-called Ethics Committee.
Why?
Surely there should be a commentary attached mentioning that FIFA President Sepp Blatter is the target of a corruption investigation by Zug Investigating Magistrate Thomas Hildbrand who led a Fraud Squad raid on FIFA house on November 3, 2005.

In May 2005 Hildbrand indicted a group of executives from the bankrupt ISL marketing company for embezzling aprox £45 million owing to FIFA. Their trial date, expected to be early in the New Year in Zug, should be announced in the next few weeks.

My declaration of interest: I am an English Investigative journalist and film maker. Read an extract from my new book about FIFA corruption – or watch the video of the BBC Panorama programme ‘The Beautiful Bung’ transmitted on Jan 11 and much more disclosure at my website.

Andrew's website is www.transparencyinsport.org and a great source if you are interested in the subject.

My response is that I try to show constructive steps, and not only write about the bad stuff. So if anybody is interested in an ethics commission for sport, they can find the link on the site.

However it is true that people only change under pressure, and FIFA is probably taking this step (creating a new ethics committee) because of scrutiny on the above mentioned affairs, disclosed by people like Andrew. Keep the light shining - transparency keeps us honest !

New ethics committee for FIFA

The Executive Committee of the world football's governing body, FIFA, has approved a revised code of ethics and appointed Lord Sebastian Coe as the chairman of the new Ethics Committee, which will cover conduct and procedural rules. more

Can cycling be cleaned up ?

Phonak, a Swiss company producing hearing aids, has supported a cycling team for the last 7 years. The most famous team member was Floyd Landis, whose win of the 2006 Tour de France race has just been cancelled on the basis of a positive test for testosterone. Andy Rihs, the CEO of Phonak, has just announced that he is dissolving the Phonak team at the end of this year (check out the statement on the Phonak website). He is totally disappointed, as this is the 14th case of doping in this team since 2001. Floyd Landis, as all the cyclists, had signed the ethics charter, and was fired after the results came out.

If companies cannot count on the athletes respecting the terms of their contracts and of the code of ethics (not to mention the spirit of fair competition), then maybe the best thing is to withdraw sponsorship, or dissolve the whole team.  If their livelihood is threatened, maybe the athletes will exert enough peer pressure to clean up this and many other sports.

Trying to clean up cycling

An in-depth audit of the sport of cycling is being launched to weed out the drug culture. They plan to look at the events, the calendar, the riders, the teams and the management, and involve sociologists, sports psychologists and physiologists. Article on the subject in the BBC. What about starting way earlier in the schools, and trying to do something generic about sports, and ethics in sports from kindergarten level an up ?

I checked on the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) website, and found their rules page, but there is no code of ethics in evidence. Somewhere near the bottom of the page there is a document on anti-doping rules. They obviously need to do a lot more than an audit.

Drug use in sports

As the winner of the tour de France, cyclist Floyd Landis , is now being tested positive for testosterone, as is the Olympic 100 m champion Justin Gatin, the debate is again heating up to see if we are making any progress on the war against the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. The sports organisation are becoming better at testing, and the penalties for being caught are harsher (I believe Gatin is up for a life long ban) and still the debate rages on. Some people still feel that certain drugs should be allowed. Other people, myself included, worry about genetic manipulation. Interesting piece in the discussion section of the Guardian entitled "Is sports winning its war against drugs".