Written by The one thing we know for sure is that the vast majority of athletes and sports coaches abhor cheating – they just cannot stand seeing cheats prosper. There are so many great athletes across sports that have been denied the gold medal because of cheating. Cheating destroys dreams and causes great emotional harm to other athletes – it is in fact a form of abuse. Other athletes and coaches that work hard to achieve their lifetime goals do not deserve to be treated in this way. The situation is made even worse when governments sponsor cheats and publicly laud their successes, not in the interests of the athletes but for selfish reasons – namely, prestige.
There are examples, however, where players and teams do display strong moral principles and refuse to demean sport. Players in the Victorian soccer team, the Corinthians, refused to believe that a team member of the opposition could possibly cheat. If awarded a penalty they would kick the ball high over the crossbar or wide of the goal. Contrast this with Diego Maradona’s famous and unpunished ‘Hand of God’ episode. If we consider the goal he scored, which secured Argentina a place in the World Cup semi-final in 1986, we immediately sense the injustice.
This single goal, scored by Maradona, encapsulates what some might consider a pandemic of cheating across many sports. It now seems that professional soccer players are encouraged to gain penalties and free kicks through covert bodily manoeuvres. The trailing leg or an abrupt stop which forces player contact and usually ends with a theatrical dive are now commonplace in the game. Doctors from national sports institutions have been known to offer asthmatic athletes stronger inhalers in order to gain a competitive advantage. This use of Therapeutic Usage Exemptions (TUEs) is considered legal and within the rules but is it fair to other athletes? Doesn’t this cause harm to other athletes who have been cheated?
When government sponsored sports institutions embark on a winning at all costs culture, then the Corinthian spirit is lost. When fame and fortune take precedence over the moral standards expected, sport then returns to its chaotic roots before codification and loses all meaning. Culture is a socially constructed phenomenon and it is the responsibility of all stakeholders who should reject any unfairness that causes harm to others. Whilst sports leaders and governments have a major role to play, they alone cannot be held responsible for the toxic behaviour of all individuals within their organisational domain.
In any organisation there are multiple cultures and toxicity can emerge from within teams, departments or from the leadership. Adolf Hitler created the Nazi culture from relatively small beginnings. He poisoned the minds of the German people from the bottom up, not the top down, to become their Führer. Didn’t the German people have a responsibility to reject his poisoned rhetoric? Too many chose not to for personal gains related to pride and financial gain. This should be a warning to all of us. Hannah Arendt pointed out, in her report on the banality of evil that the silent majority were as guilty as Hitler for the evil that resulted in mass killings.
There are, however, still many sports leaders and teams that set high moral standards, play by the rules, value the individual above all and encourage a selfless pursuit of winning at competition. The Corinthians set a gold standard for their team members. They wanted above all to win but through fair play within the spirit of the game – not by cheating. In the moral dimension they wished no harm, physical or mental, to the opposition. The emotional damage caused to athletes who have lost out to selfish cheats is now ubiquitous and difficult to erase.
To understand the team togetherness or esprit de corps engendered by the Corinthians, there is a need to consider in much more detail the part values play in the process. The first step as a sports leader, in producing a culture grounded in ethics, is to focus their followers on a cause that everyone really and truly believes in – a cause that has a much greater significance than the interests of any individual. This cause is one that each member of the team is prepared to commit every ounce of their energy in achieving.
There are five universal values that form the bedrock of a Corinthian culture – sovereignty of the individual, integrity, fairness, loyalty and endeavour. Regarding sovereignty, whilst individuals may not have equal abilities they are deemed to be equal as human beings. As such all members are treated with dignity and respect and are not used as a means to an end but an end in themselves for their own sake. Great teams have an ego-removal process in place to ensure equality.
Integrity, by definition, means being honest and holding strong moral principles that guide behaviours – a moral compass. Integrity is the main source of trust in social relationships. Another characteristic of great teams is that they are honest with themselves and with each other – they trust each other and support each other in the pursuit of their mission. Fairness, as a value, is about consistency regarding team rules and the rules of the games they play in order to ensure equity in the treatment of their competitors. It is not just slavishly following rules but following the spirit out of which the rules emerged.
In the best teams loyalty is a measure of the strength of social bonds created by the membership. It is about standing by your brothers and sisters in arms in competition and fighting with them and for them. It is also being loyal to the common cause which brings unity to all the endeavours undertaken.
A Corinthian culture, however, will never be attained if all members of a team are self-centred and only interested in their own performance. All successful sporting organisations achieve through the collective not through selfish individuals. Therefore, sports leaders need to create a balance between selfishness and selflessness if a Corinthian culture is to be achieved.