Sunday 14 October 2012

Diving, some thoughts on Lance Armstrong and Jimmy Saville and what may or not be Sport Criminology


Feeling guilty that I’ve not updated recently so this a bit of an omnibus posting.

Rosie Meek argues persuasively of the possibilities of sport in encouraging desistance amongst prisoners.  In a personal anecdote to me she recalled that outside teams found prison teams to be the least dirty.  I’m still not sure her work, excellent though it is, fits into my idea of sport criminology.  I see it as top quality criminological evaluation of prison projects in which sport is the variable under study.  The variable could be art, comedy, opera, cold showers or the treadmill and crank.  So my interest would not be whether sport could prevent crime or encourage desistance from crime but the extent and depth of crime within that sport.

That is my emphasis here is on crimes as understood in the wider world or within the world of that sport.  Obviously the current case of Lance Armstrong offers much opportunity for discussion under both or any definition of crime, but it is already widely covered and has yet to come to a conclusion.  One ignored area in this tale is the power of money - the business of cycle racing.  I will return to this in a future post.

Less ignored has been a claim that ‘things were different then’ in cycling or that the atmosphere of pop music - in which young women could be sexually exploited - was also ‘different then’.  And some link the cases of failure to spot the crimes of Armstrong and Savile.  That hyperlink is to an explicitly christian website which fails to note the many equivalent scandals of the church. They even quote Thomas Cranmer saying, ‘What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies.’ Quite.

But enough bashing of bible-bashers and back to sport, crime and the business of football.  You might see ‘diving’ or ‘going down easily’ as cheating, a form of positive deviance (usually use of performance enhancing drugs or debilitating over-training) or Mertonian innovation (I often use cheating in sport to illustrate this - the acceptance of the legitimate ‘ends’ of the game but not the ‘means’) but here I’m going to try and step into the game.

A football spectator who has paid enough for an opera ticket may be made so cross by the cheating of the opposition that he finds himself arrested for his reaction.  If you’ve paid ‘good money’ to bribe a player or official you may also be pretty cross and vow to have someone’s legs broken.  These too may be ancillary to sport criminology.  So finally to crime in sport.  The crime of diving for a foul or preferably a penalty.

In the real, rather than the sportsworld, crime is usually dealt with by attacking it (the war on ...’) or redefining it; or just handwringing or even resort to biological or medical metaphor - cancer in this instance.  Another tactic to is to blame the crime on foreigners, so step forward Luis Suarez.  Since the crime of diving is now thought to be at record levels - have we the stats? are we being nostalgic? - how about some realworld solutions?

Should we return to football’s earlier rougher incarnations and decriminalise the foul and reinstate ‘hacking’ (kicks on the shin not checking the phones of celebrities for signs of sex offending).  Or, like the crime techno-fix of CCTV, insist the players have gyroscopes fitted with real time telemetry judging how easily they went down and the identity of the nearest players from their embedded RFIDs.  Or, given the epistemological problems of being sure between the foul and the dive might we be less punitive.  Not a penalty shot or free kick but 10 minutes in the sin bin, perhaps?  Or given changes in boot and ball technology move the penalty spot back.

Wonga

And another thing that might not be sport criminology but does involve ‘harm’ within sport business, so a concern for zemiology, is the sponsorship of Newcastle United by Wonga.  This causes specific offence to the Muslim players and a more generalised offence to me.  My sports sponsorship Catch 22 is that no company with the cash or desire to sponsor your team could ever be morally fit to do so.

Saturday 29 September 2012

British Society of Criminology South Branch and the Mannheim Centre for Criminology – LSE 2012/13 Seminar Series


British Society of Criminology South Branch and the Mannheim Centre for Criminology – LSE
2012/13 Seminar Series

10 Oct Professor Rosie Meek, University of Teesside
The role of sport in rehabilitation and desistance from crime
LSE: New Academic Building, Room 1.07

7 Nov Matthew Bacon, University of Sheffield
Taking care of the drug business: A study of police detectives, drug law enforcement and proactive investigation
LSE: Connaught House, Room 1.05

5 Dec Professor Jon Silverman, University of Bedfordshire and former Home Affairs Editor BBC 
Crime policy and the media
LSE: New Academic Building, Room 1.07

16 Jan Professor Wayne Morrison, Queen Mary University of London Lessons for the study of state crime from the Nazi era
LSE: New Academic Building, Room 1.07
13 Feb David Scott, University of Central Lancashire 
Ghosts beyond our realm: prison officer occupational culture and less eligibility
LSE: New Academic Building, Room 1.07

13 Mar Ros Burnett, University of Oxford
False allegations of abuse in positions of trust
LSE: New Academic Building, Room 1.07
15 May Professor Mike Nash, University of Portsmouth 
Co-operating or Coerced? The 'others' in public protection.
LSE: Connaught House, Room 1.05

12 Jun Professor David Wilson Birmingham City University
What we can learn from the history of British serial killing
LSE: Connaught House, Room 1.05

The seminars will begin at 6.30pm, with wine from 6.15pm, and we recommend arriving early to be sure of a seat.  We hope you will also be able to stay for drinks with the speaker afterwards.


Directions:http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/mapsAndDirections/travellingToLSE.htm

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Olympic Claims


In Criminal Justice Matters No 88 (June 2012) ‘(In)security and the re-ordered Olympic city’ Pete Fussey explored issues around Olympic-related security and insecurity in advance of the Games.  Writing between the Games and the Paralympics I hope to assess some of those same issues.

First though some ‘conflict-of-interests’ confessions.  I was the external examiner on Peter’s PhD on CCTV and am very pleased to see the extent to which he has been able expand upon that work.  Also I’m a sports fan and have spent much of the past few weeks watching - live and recorded - the Olympics.  I agree with much that Peter says though I will be picking away at some aspects.  But, I’m not going to assert an ‘I-was-there’ standpointism where my experience of attending trumps his prospective theoretical position.  I went to the Olympic Park 6 times (3 Athletics, 1 Women’s Hockey, 1 Men’s Water Polo, 1 Women’s Basketball and 1 Track Cycling after another event) and the Lea Valley White Water Centre for Canoe Slalom.

Fussey picks out ‘a number of specific strategies [which] are consistently applied’: Militarisation, Privatisation, Technology and Surveillance, Physical Design and Behavioural regulation.  Whilst all might have been expected from his studies of other mega-events but the first two had a particular inconsistency in their application that might not have been anticipated.

Leading up to the Games much was made of the ‘missiles on rooftops’ but the experience of imilitarisation was in the form of actual serving members of the armed forces in the wake of the G4S security shortfall.  This even lead some commentators to eulogise them.  I can vouch for their friendly efficiency (and, like the policing of the torch relay a massive PR coup for them).  So actual militarisation trumped privatisation to the extent that 2 Govt Ministers were said to have had second thoughts about the limits of privatisation.  We shall see.

The technology and surveillance was less obvious but behind all such friendliness we find that Disney are using military strength face-recognition.  And again the physical and behavioural issues remind us of Disney.  Not only did the Olympic Park remind me of Disney but so did people’s appreciation of it.  But most had not read Clifford D. Shearing and Phillip C. Stenning’s ‘From the Panopticon to Disney World: the Development of Discipline’.  More hopeful though, are Warren’s conclusions in ‘Popular Cultural Practices in the “Postmodern City”’ that even:

Disneyland, demonstrates that contemporary urban landscapes are complicated and contradictory sites that hegemonically embed both dominant cultural and economic relations and creative resistance to them.

My derives around Stratford attempted some resistance, as does this.  But, and scandalously under-reported save on Twitter, were some more active complaints.  Thus Femen demonstrated outside City Hall against the inclusion of Islamic countries at the Olympics.  Yet I joined in the cheers for a Saudi and Palestinian woman athlete sporting ‘racing Hijabs’.

There is a dreadful irony in the success of the cycling team and the kettling of cycle born protestors on the night of the Opening Ceremony.  And further ironies in the on-screen lauding of the protests of Tommie Smith and John Carlos.  Past protests - on the right side - are seen to be acceptable.

But perhaps the best news is an unexpected Olympic legacy, of life imitating art as the suffragettes from the opening ceremony discover their feminism.

Thursday 19 July 2012

The Drugs don't work - but keep taking the tablets


The Guardian has Bradley Wiggins saying: ‘I can never dope because it would cost me everything if I took drugs I would stand to lose my reputation, my livelihood, my marriage, my family, my house, my titles …’
Such statements remind me of the social bonds discussed in the self/control theories of Hirschi. Those are keeping Bradley in line. 
But the Tour de France is famous for its doping and the performance of the Sky team, for which Wiggins rides, has been compared to that of Lance Armstrong’s (leading to a rant by Wiggins).  Armstrong continues to show that even being shown to be clean brings no peace; to the doubters you must also have cheated the tests.  Franck Schleck and Remy di Gregorio (at the time of writing) are the only two riders to fail this year.
Yet I continue to watch the Tour with enjoyment: the sights, the tactics, the sheer spectacle.  Similarly I don’t think what drugs have aided the performance of the actors, singers, writers or dancers I enjoy.  My main worry for Wiggins is not that he will be tempted to dope but that given the high stakes others may seek to spike his food or drink as Schleck claims his was. 
Amongst the plethora of Olympic stories are the bold claims of LOCOG and WADA.
London 2012 will carry out an unprecedented number of tests to ensure the health and rights of the athletes, and that the integrity of the Games is upheld.
The drug testing facility to be run by GlaxoSmithKline and its associated regime is backed up by this video.  The video seeks to deny drugs yet stylistically evokes them and concludes, which is interesting for a drug company.
But let’s examine those claims: athletes health, rights and the integrity of the games.
athletes health

The occasional transgressions of professional footballers often affords us an insight into their training regimes.  They are scant compared to far-less-well-rewarded swimmers, cyclists and other athletes.  And yet all are unlikely to enjoy good health while practising their sport and retirement brings further problems.  Fitness may be good for your health but professional sport is likely to be bad.  Liz Pike notes that athletes normalize illness and injury and her two-year ethnographic study of female rowers showed that medical support for these athletes was both insufficient and inadequate.  Moreover the demands of capitalism mean that the Olympic ‘ideal’ is paid for by corporate sponsors, many in the obesity business.  Neville Rigby and Amandine Garde argue that in:
concluding long-term exclusivity agreements with iconic junk food brands, the International Olympic Committee has failed to support public health policy.
Turning to rights 
It is my experience of talking to athletes that they whole-heartedly embrace the drug and other testing regimes foisted on them.  They subscribe to the ideology of the ‘drug cheat’, perhaps for fear that, as with politicians and the ‘war on drugs’, any questioning of the policy leads to embarrassing questions about youthful ingestion/inhalation.  The Church of WADA/IOC punishes heretics.
And yet, some dare speak out.  For instance EU Athletes and UNI Global Union use a rights-based discourse to raise some challenge:
The lack of effectiveness of the present system is deeply worrying and does not justify the violation of athletes’ fundamental rights [...] Athletes need anti-doping rules that are effective and fair. The WADA Code fails on both counts and that is why we are launching our legal challenges today.
Speaking more personally and with some fervour Andy Murray complains, “I just want to enjoy a normal life without people bashing on your door at four in the morning.”  And some doctors, with the protection of the white coat of science have argued, “Far from being unfair, drugs that enhance performance actually promote equality”
As a criminologist with an interest in human rights I’m taken by the comparison with Sex Offenders Register which requires registration and notification within 3 days whereas the elite athletes have to predict months in advance where they will be and risk ‘failing’ a test if not there.
I would suggest that the compromises to athletes health and rights combined with the IOC’s supine relations with big business and corruption scandals (similar for FIFA) means that it also fails the integrity test.
and back to drugs
But just as athletes loathe the 'drug cheat' they show the same motivation and will do anything ‘legal’ to achieve an advantage, as this advert for vitamins shows. And this website on such ergogenic aids.



But fans of Ben Goldacre’s blog Bad Science will not be surprised to discover the 'Lack of evidence' that popular sports products work.  Dr Carl Heneghan of the Oxford University Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine asked the manufacturer’s of Lucozade Sport for their evidence that the drink was an "an isotonic performance fuel to take you faster, stronger, for longer"  He said the mountain of data included 101 trials that the Oxford team were able to examine before concluding: "In this case, the quality of the evidence is poor, the size of the effect is often minuscule and it certainly doesn't apply to the population at large who are buying these products.”  So in seeking to gain a legal advantage we may have been cheated.  The best cons work on our greed and gullibility.
Oh, and a final irony.  The manufacturers of Lucozade are GlaxoSmithKline who will be running the drugs lab.
However I have two weeks blocked out for the Games and will attend 3 athletics sessions, one men’s hockey, one women’s basketball, a canoe slalom (I’ve already white-water rafted the course), some water polo plus hours of TV.  The paralympics brings swimming and cycling into the frame.  I’m not even sure the games are a ‘unifying force’ but they are ‘tarnished’.  But what Spectacle isn’t?
Let’s see if I can smuggle my opinions past security.

Thursday 12 July 2012

Referee! - FAVORITISM AND REFEREE BIAS IN EUROPEAN SOCCER: EVIDENCE FROM THE SPANISH LEAGUE AND THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE




  1. BABATUNDE BURAIMO, ROB SIMMONS, MAREK MACIASZCZYK in 
Contemporary Economic Policy Volume 30, Issue 3, pages 329–343, July 2012 report:
In this paper, we test for, and find evidence of, referee bias in favor of home teams in European football using minute-by-minute analysis to control for within-game events. The context for the analysis is Spain's Primera Liga and the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) Champions League. We find that the award of sanctions by Spanish referees in the Champions League are not significantly different to those of the referees from other countries and as such are subject to the same sources of bias. In Primera Liga matches where the crowd is separated from the pitch by running tracks, we find that the probability of the award of a yellow card to the home team is higher and that of the away team is lower compared to matches played at stadia without running tracks. Similar results are found in the Champions League, where efforts are made to hire “neutral” referees. Referee behavior is also influenced by the size of the crowd in attendance.
I've only read the abstract but this seems to suggest that referees (agents of law and of order for our purposes fulfilling police, prosecution and judicial functions) can be swayed by the size and proximity of a crowd.  Do some of the same effects occur with the real agents of law and order?


And where does this leave the suggestion that it is difficult to gain a penalty at Manchester United?  Turns out its more difficult at Fulham (small, tight ground).

Monday 9 July 2012

Racism in Football - an ongoing series


When, and I paraphrase and apologise to the faint-hearted, Roy Keane told his Irish Manager, Barnsley-accented Mick McCarthy:
You're a fucking wanker and you can stick your World Cup up your arse ... you English cunt! You can stick it up your bollocks.
it was generally agreed that the offensive term in this was 'English'.
Now John Terry is said to have called Anton Ferdinand a 'fucking black cunt'

Does 'black' carry a more than descriptive import or is it racist, a form of 'hate speech'.  Obviously this will be a matter for the Court but according to the BBC Anton Ferdinand said he was initially reluctant to talk to the police because it was a sporting issue, 'This is a footballing issue that happened on the football pitch where we work'.
So racism is bad but football is another country.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

British Journal of Sociology - Olympic Special


Sunday 24 June 2012

not expecting World Peace soon nor giving up my Olympic tickets

The malignancy of sport

In Criminal Justice Matters (CJM) No 88 June 2012 Ellis Cashmore argues that, for all its apparent innocuousness, sport is a harmful presence in society.



The time and energy we put into sport could be more profitable deployed.  Sport is not only futile, arbitrary and and wasteful: it is a malign presence that, it was once thought, would serve as a source of moral inspiration, but which has merely become part of an apparatus that buttresses consumer culture.
 I can't disagree with the sentiment of this sprint jeremiad.  However, obviously as I continue to play and watch sport live and mediatised (as I type a window in my computer is showing the Kitzbuhel Triathlon* and I shall be watching England v Italy in Euro 2012 later) I must have some differences.  Those differences are politico-ideological but I'll try and drag criminology too.


It feels as if Cashmore has been let down by sport and that he might have formerly believed that it could, 'deliver peace on earth, save the planet from environmental disaster, or assist the discovery of a cure for cancer'.  I have never believed that sport was anything other than a part of society (despite it's pretensions to special status and demands for immunity from politics or law) and subject to all of the problems of society.


And that problem is 'money' or 'consumer culture' as Cashmore has it.  Or, capitalism.  None of the problems he addresses are new but have become more concentrated, and particularly in soccer, which he takes largely as his example.  His approach reminds me of Brohm's classic Sport, a prison of measured time and more recently of Marc Perelman's Barbaric Sport.  


So what of the criminology?  The publisher's of CJM (and I have some sympathy with this approach) favour a broad vision of crime to incorporate harms not always or appropriately dealt with by law and criminal justice.  Cashmore's piece takes the broadest approach in denouncing sport.  Within this tradition I'd be happier pulling the focus in a touch and worrying about the matters that Fussey raises in his article in CJM 88 which I'll examine later.


And in the spirit of Richard Neville's Playpower suggest that sport, like drugs should be recreational.


*the Brownlee brothers first and second.

Saturday 23 June 2012

Criminal Justice Matters: Sport and Harm




    CJM no88.  Contents below.  I'll be commenting on some/much in next few weeks.

    THEMED SECTION: SPORT AND HARM
    Sport and harm
    Peter Francis introduces the themed content for this issue
    The malignancy of sport
    Ellis Cashmore argues that, for all its apparent innocuousness,sport is a harmful presence in society
    Sport in the service of international development
    Tess Kay considers what sports-based interventions to promote change, development and peace have to learn from the wider field of international development
    Major sport events and global threats/responses
    Kimberly S Schimmel examines the intensification of security measures for major sporting events and why these developments have largely not been publically challenged
    (In)security and the re-ordered Olympic city
    Pete Fussey explores some key issues around Olympic-related security and insecurity
    Going down? Football finance in the global era
    John Williams looks at the changing face of football finance and offers some hope to those who see themselves as genuine supporters of the game
    Paying the price? Why football still has a problem
    Mike Rowe and Jon Garland assess the ongoing presence of racism in football
    Sports journalists and corruption: between unintended and wilful blindness
    Dino Numerato provides an account of the unintended and wilful ways in which journalists might contribute to the diffusion of corruption in contemporary sport

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Like CCTV goal line technology won't work

The Sun today, in a sport page headline, urged us to forget goal line technology.  Perhaps because we had won.  But in a more considered article had this to say:



The ball looped towards goal and, while John Terry made an acrobatic clearance, replays showed the ball was OVER the line.
There were three officials watching it, the linesman, the official by the goal and ref Viktor Kassai but none of them spotted it.
What is the point of that bloke behind the goal-line? He was only five yards away and still he did not notice the ball was in.
Video technology cannot come soon enough.
At least it was some justice for England having had that Frank Lampard effort wrongly disallowed at the 2010 World Cup against Germany.


Let's start with that last point to dismiss it.  'Justice' is not the same as some hazy understanding of Hindu and Buddhist ideas of 'karma'.


The recent clamour for goal line technology reminds me of the demands for CCTV and the erroneous belief that it would 'work' (see my demolition here, based on the Home Office's own untrumpeted work).


I am not opposed to deploying technology; indeed, hugely enjoy the 'gaming' aspect of challenges in Tennis and Cricket using 'Hawkeye'.  Similarly, one of CCTV's main functions is to provide entertainment or tragic memorial on Crimewatch.


Whether we need it is another matter.  Fifth and sixth officials, like real life police officers, can do more than a technology but seem not to have in this case.  Moreover, television was quickly able to show the goal without any additional technology.  It has always shown all the fouls and diving without much sign of that being justly dealt with.


So lets fit the technology and congratulate ourselves we have resolved the issue.  And then start the argument that the player was offside earlier or should not have been on the pitch because of an earlier unpunished foul.  Or, even should not have been playing in the first place because of earlier infractions or that they were not properly qualified.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Paddy's Pants Up: Bendtner's no John Carlos

Every one is having great fun with Nicklas Bendtner's flashing his sponsored underpants including outrage at the perceived disproportion of his penalty compared to UEFA's treatment of individual and national racism.  Let's be clear UEFA's record is not good - a Guardian charge list here.  But anyone with criminological, legal or penological nous would not be surprised.


You don't need to be a radical criminologist or student of white-collar crime to see that money is always going to trump racism or hate crime more generally.  And see the fearsome requirements of the lex olympica, particularly in respect of ambush marketing like Bendtner's.  Expect more stories like this.


It is disingenuous of  Paddy Power's spokesperson to claim, 'We don't believe that Nicklas should be penalised for nothing more serious than wearing his lucky underpants which in fairness was only a bit of fun.'  But we know that.  We are all media savvy.  Their offer to pay his fine will just come from the marketing budget.  And cheap at the price.


To get into trouble advertising a bookmaker - notice how many adverts for Power's rivals appear in the ad break - is pretty poor.  Bendtner's no John Carlos.


But back to the racism and the policing/prosecuting/punishing of sport.  I've some sympathy with the difficulties of national federations in controlling the actions of 'their' fans and have some concerns that opposing fans - like players on the pitch - will try to get the opposition into trouble.  So the fines on them can be seen as 'slaps on the wrist' or 'merely symbolic'.  I'd rather more was actually done about racism and other discriminations in society more widely than upping the punishment of sides or individuals.


But in the Bendtner case I do feel that the team, team management and national federation can be held to blame as they have full control of all aspects of the player's actions in such an instance.


So Bendnter's a pretty pathetic patsy for paddy power but UEFA right to hold Denmark to account for it.  Whether the Danish nation deserves the collective punishment of his suspension for their next vital World Cup qualifying match is another matter.


And don't get me started on betting as a driver of criminality in and around sport.

Monday 18 June 2012

Restorative Justice in Sport - Tennis Caught

This may only be lawn tennis not the real (royal) version but let's run with the idea of a court.  A court of justice.

The brief facts from the Guardian:

Already up one set David Nalbandian lost a point and the game to go 4-3 down to Marin Cilic at Queen's.  He kicked out at an advertising hoarding damaging it and, collaterally, the shin of the line judge, Andrew McDougall.

The ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Tour Supervisor, Tom Barnes immediately defaulted Nalbandian costing him the match, his runner-up prize money of £36,144 and his 150 ranking points.  So pretty summary justice.  And Nalbandian did not take it well, sounding of at the ATP and some of its rules - particularly in making players play when they don't feel it is safe to do so.  The Guardian's Sports Blog found this and the disgruntled punters demanding that play continue, 'disgraceful'.

In making line calls etc, tennis umpires and their teams have to operate summary, even Robocop, and sometimes 'hawkeye' justice but this incident, off court, might have been dealt with more slowly.

In the heat of the moment Nalbandian was clearly ungracious at losing my annual salary in one fell swoop and he may suffer additional punishment.  But had someone thought to mediate between Nalbandian and McDougall might a better result - for tennis and the disappointed crowd.

Monday 11 June 2012

Race and foul judgments in football - it's not black and white

More from the British Psychological Society.

Complex findings suggesting racism (including fear of being thought racist) in football refereeing of fouls.
Compare perhaps with findings of police use disproportionate stop powers on the streets (see Stopwatch).

Interestingly Pascal Gygax and his colleagues presented 43 White football players, 17 White referees and 22 White football fans with 64 challenge sequences created with the Xbox 360 console game Fifa 2005.

Domestic Violence and Sport

Clearly violence should be an issue for criminologists but domestic violence has not had the coverage it should have had.  Were it not for feminist activists and academics, it would have had even less.

So where to draw the line between sports criminology and criminology?  Violence against women is not to be condoned but I'm still not sure that the manifold instances of sportsmen's (or even spectator) violence off field is a subject for sports criminology but criminology proper.

However, given the interest in the topic some engagement is necessary.  Linked to the Olympics The British Psychological Society have launched a sport-related portal where I found this on 'Football culture and domestic violence'.  It seeks to make distinctions between association and rugby union football refereeing (or policing/prosecuting/judging) which seem reasonable in respect of game play but don't seem to relate to the issue of domestic violence.

Better sources might be Jeff Bendict's Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA's Culture of Rape, Violence, and Crime and Public Heros Private Fellons: Athletes and Crimes Against Women or Mariah Burton Nelson's The stronger women get, the more men love football.

Having played contact team sports I can confirm violence and sexist values but have no reason to believe that they are linked to domestic violence directly in the way that some suggest.

Thursday 7 June 2012

Music as "legal drug"

On BBC R4 John Wilson discovers why many people call music sport's "legal drug". In some research studies, it's been shown as increasing performance by 20 per cent while reducing an athlete's perception of effort by 10 per cent. Music blocks out fatigue-related symptoms such as the burning lungs, the beating heart and the lactic acid in the muscles enabling athletes to train harder and longer. 


If it really works (poor methodology and placebo effects are worries) should it not be banned?

Martial Farts

OK probably more sports law than sports criminology but Taekwondo's Aaron Cook continues to challenge the failure of his Federation to select him for the Olympics.  On reports it is difficult not to think that his independent mindedness is being punished by the 'blazers' - those combined police officers, prosecutors, judges and gaolers who run much sport.

Tuesday 5 June 2012

My pseudoephedrine, caffeine and diclofenac shame: ‘drug cheats’, ‘performance-enhancing’ or ‘performance-enabling’?


As a one-time marathoner I have risked being banned for my use of pseudoephedrine, in an over the counter cold remedy.  Was I a drug cheat?  I would argue no, since no amount of drug use would have enabled me to win.  I had a cold and, risking my health, decided to enable my performance by using a ‘performance-enhancing’ drug.  I’d done the training, I wanted to do the race.
My best Marathon (London 1985, 3hours 1min 34 seconds) followed 2 years of 50 miles a week, 3 weeks without alcohol, one week without tea or coffee and a super strong cup of black coffee on the morning of the marathon.  Caffeine is on the World Anti Doping Agency’s (WADA) permitted list but it’s use is monitored.
All this running has come back to haunt me in the form of osteoarthritis in my legs.  An ongoing prescription for diclofenac (sold as Voltarol) followed diagnosis.  It fights inflammation and pain and allowed me to continue running.  Concern for my health - ie that its use was masking further damage to my knees, hips and toes - means I’m currently ‘clean’ and exercising with pain.
I have criminological doubts about sport’s ‘War on Drugs’ and will write about it  shortly in an Olympic Special but my own legal, ‘monitored’ and banned drug use meant I was also recently interested in FIFAs recent concern about painkillers.
In the British Journal of Sports Medicine Tscholl and Dvorak report that during the tournament 71.7% of all players took medication, and 60.3% (444 of 736 players) took painkilling agents at least once. Over a third of players (39.0%) took a painkilling agent before every game!  Some of that would have been my  little helper, diclofenac.
I worry that this is bad for their health.  Dr Geyer of WADA is reported to be concerned about the rise of the use of painkillers in training and competition.  But says:
The very extensiveness of societal caffeine acceptance/abuse has largely kept it out of anti-doping regimes and completely out of media chants of ‘drug cheat’.  Might an arthritic generation accept diclofenac abuse and the rave generation yet more recreational use and use in recreation?

Saturday 2 June 2012

Being a visiting football fan whilst being black

It would be nice to say that in England no black man or woman is abused, let alone murdered.  It would be nice to say that in England no footballer who signs for another team is derided with homophobic chants.

So this is some context for a mention of Sol Campbell's warning to black fans to stay away from Ukraine's hosting of Euro 2012.

I'm not black and not sufficient a fan to have ever considered travelling to watch England abroad.  People will have to make their own decisions about going;  but low ticket sales suggest all manner of England fans are keeping their cash in their pockets whether through fear of crime or the economic crisis.

As a criminologist the 'fear of crime' and Campbell's 'race crime' concerns are of obvious interest.  If nothing happens will that show nothing was going to happen or that precaution worked?

But worse what if black fans went and stood up for themselves, or were accompanied by anti-racists intent on challenge, how would they be policed?  Would the UK Govt see them as doughty human rights activists or 'hooligans' deserving of media trashing and banning orders?

Sport Crime in News w/e 13 May 2012

Enjoyed these stories from a few weeks back.


Sports Victimology

Having just created Sports Criminology then spawned Sports Penology I offer you Sports Victimology.

See my comments on this Economist piece.

Friday 1 June 2012

Punishment in Sport

Having only recently invented Sports Criminology lets now investigate Sports Penology - that is how are sports people punished on the field and, increasingly, off.

The Economist's Game Theory Blog has this interesting piece .  They don't really investigate, or even use the terms, 'penalty' or 'punitiveness' but any criminologists should reflect that many of the discussions we have about the high incarceration rate of the USA and low ones for Scandinavian Countries or Japan are also applicable in sport.

Welcome to sports criminology

Is there space for a sports criminology between sports law and sociology of sport?

Perhaps room for criminological perspectives on sport as I argue here