Something rotten about sports match fixing: Peter Roebuck

Sport can no longer remain immune from courts. Inescapably it is part of the wider world. Insider trading is to be taken seriously, all the more so when the perpetrators are at the same time representing their countries and conveying unbridled patriotism, claims cricket columnist Peter Roebuck.

Stating that no one need be surprised by the evidence emerging in a Southwark Crown court, Roebuck writes in his Sydney Morning Herald syndicated column: “The combination of a boastful middleman eager to impress his audience and a deeply compromised game makes it inevitable that all sorts of stories will be told.”

“Some of them will be the merest speculation, others will be founded on a thin layer of fact and others will be accurate. Trying to separate truth from falsehood is the tricky part,” he adds.

“It's not that Australian sportsmen are incapable of such activities - past and present tell no such tale. Money does not talk, it swears. It's just that no evidence has been provided to indicate that any current cricketer is involved in anything of the sort, even in the IPL,” Roebuck said.

“Until that changes, the claims should be treated with the utmost caution. Everyday, 1000 conspiracy theorists post 10,000 rumours online. The Internet is a place where mice can bring down men. The vast majority of them are nonsense. Not that cricket is lily white. It has not been so for decades,” Roebuck adds.

“And the battle to clean up the game continues. Not even the recent World Cup can entirely be trusted,” he says.

“Cricket can only gather and sift the evidence,” Roebuck says, and adds that corruption in the game cannot be eradicated completely.

“Sportsmen can be greedy and insecure. Moreover, the game itself is awash with money. Nor have the powerful always set an example,” he concludes.