Last year, former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad made a suggestion. Those found guilty of match-fixing ought to be hanged, he said.
Miandad, whose son is married to the daughter of Dawood Ibrahim, known at various times as the kingpin of the fixing racket, found support from teammate Abdul Qadir who suggested that had the first generation of fixers been hanged, the next generation wouldn’t have shown much enthusiasm for it. “Until an example is set,” chimed in Shahid Afridi, “it will continue.”
The death penalty for match-fixing is ridiculous, but what is even more so is that despite regular reminders that it continues to exist there has been little attempt by governments in the subcontinent to frame a law against it.
This has meant that those who have been accused in Pakistan and India have been allowed to get away with a slap on the wrists. It has also meant that the last Indian Test player to be accused was charged under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), the law used to combat terrorism, and that, naturally, wouldn’t stick.
The news, therefore, that the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) is in Sri Lanka, and hopes to persuade the government to make match-fixing a criminal offence should be welcomed. Both for redirecting focus on the issue and for the fact that the governing body is taking the initiative.
The ACU hopes to meet Indian government officials too, according to a report in UK’s Daily Telegraph . If India have learnt one lesson from the original fixing scandal that broke at the turn of the century, it is that the fixers cannot be brought to book without the help of the law and the police.
Ambiguity is a friend of the perpetrators, and a legal framework for dealing with them is long overdue.
In May this year, Al Jazeera telecast a documentary exposing some fixers and a groundsman in Sri Lanka who doctored a pitch for an international match. This week, three players from Hong Kong — one of whom played against India in the recent Asia Cup — were charged with 19 counts of breaching the anti-corruption code including offences linked to a game against Scotland and at the 2016 World T20 in India.
Since a tearful South African captain Hansie Cronje was seen on live TV confessing to his misdeeds in India, match-fixing has shown itself to be a universal problem, with international and local players admitting to it in England, New Zealand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, West Indies, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya and Hong Kong.
In India, where authorities stumbled upon it by accident when they were investigating another crime, lawmakers have moved slowly. In 2013, when fixing in the IPL was first being investigated, the then Law Minister Kapil Sibal had asked for a “separate law” to deal with the issue.
“Cheating”, under which some of the offenders were charged lacks clarity and bite. Fixing is seen as a victimless crime, and is seen as difficult to prove legally. Yet, three Pakistan cricketers, including their skipper did serve time in England for spot-fixing, so where there is a will there is a way.
In July this year, the Law Commission of India recommended that match-fixing and sports fraud be deemed as “criminal offences” and dealt with “severe punishments”.
The wheels of justice grind slowly, which is understandable, but should the wheels of the lawmakers grind slowly too? The Prevention of Dishonesty in Sports Bill was ready in 2001; The National Sports Development Code in 2011, the Draft National Sports Development in 2013, and the Draft Prevention of Sporting Fraud Bill the same year.
In 2016, the then President of the BCCI and a ruling party Member of Parliament Anurag Thakur introduced the National Sports Ethics Commission Bill which borrowed from the earlier bills. Yet, we still have no law that makes match-fixing (which includes spot-fixing) a criminal offence.
If well-paid Test cricketers have fallen prey to the temptation, what about young players who bristle at the vast gap in payment in the IPL, for instance? Tempters come in various garbs, with different stories and can smell out the vulnerable.
The ICC and the Board of Control for Cricket in India have systems of education in place, yet there is nothing like the prospect of a jail term or long-term disgrace to discourage potential fixers. A history of those who got away lightly (because there is no law against fixing) is hardly a deterrent.
Someone from Pakistan here, another from Sri Lanka there, a third lot from Hong Kong being hauled up by the governing bodies keeps the ‘crime’ alive in the public consciousness, and each time we speak of the urgency of having a law to deal with it.
Meanwhile, some players are working out the cost benefit analysis in their heads, and when the next big shock arrives, India will continue to be unprepared.
