THEME

Amanda Smith: Today on The Sports Factor we're going to talk about ethical values in sport, both on and off the field.

THEME

Amanda Smith: Drug-taking, racial abuse, bribery scandals, match-fixing allegations; they're just some of the unattractive features of modern sport that we've become all too familiar with. Has sport lost its way as far as operating within a framework of values that controls bad or unethical behaviour? Does sport build 'character', as is so often claimed? And has professionalism destroyed the amateur ideal of playing fairly and for the love of the game?

Those are some of the questions we'll try to tease out today. But first, an even more basic question: Can sport exist at all without fair play? Simon Longstaff is the Executive Director of the St James Ethics Centre in Sydney.

Simon Longstaff: No, I mean I think that's what sport, it naturally presumes fair play. You can have competition without fair play, which is a different thing, but I think to the extent that people are engaged in sport and you don't have to be too prosaic about this, this is just even the notion of going on to a field, or in some kind of arena, and competing. For those involved, if you cheat in order to secure victory, it's always a diminished victory. I mean it's tarnished, you must know that even at the outset you've conceded to your opponent. Some notion that they are so superior when compared to you, that the only way that you can actually win is by cheating. And even if you do, as a result of this process, enjoy some kind of material benefit through a bonus, or extra money, or even glory, it's hardly worth having it, because if anybody knew about it, they'd immediately strip those things away from you. So you live a lie.

Amanda Smith: Do you think that in contemporary sport, in professional sport, there is nevertheless a higher expectation of fair play and traditional sports values amongst sports audience, the spectators, than amongst the participants, the athletes?

Simon Longstaff: I don't know. If I tried to put myself in the athlete's shoes, I would see all sorts of pressures driving me to think 'Well I've got to win at all costs', and it might be the prospect of financial benefit, but I just can't ever imagine anybody who's in an elite sporting thing standing up and saying, 'Well look guess what everybody, I won but I cheated.' Let's suppose even if it wasn't against the rules, there would be something which is so innately wrong about that, that people would not be proud of it, and that defies this old test called the Sunlight Test, which is often applied in ethics, which is 'How would I feel if everybody who I respect and admire knew what I'd done, because it was in the paper or on your program or on the 6 o'clock news, and it was all made transparent and exposed to light?' As for the people who watch sport, I think that they want the drama and the excitement and all the rest. And basically there's a sense that the people want to see again … it comes back to this kind of fairly raw nature of the human experience … they want to see real people engaged in a proper tussle, and for all their love of the possibility that their side will win, or the person they support, they want to believe that it was done because of the skill or on the merits of that individual or team performance. And if they were told, 'Hey, guess what, we just did this and we cheated', I think that their support would be lost very quickly. As it has been whenever we see this, whenever it comes out you see the sports or the sporting peoples concerned, losing credibility and therefore support from the public, on whom ultimately they depend.

Amanda Smith: Now one of the values that's often attributed to sport, and argued in its favour, is that sport builds 'character'. But what sort of character, and does that translate to other areas of life? Doris Corbett is an American sports sociologist who was in Australia recently.

Doris Corbett: Sport certainly has the potential of teaching these values. Whether it does or does not teach those values certainly rest with the organisational structure of that particular sport and institutions. One of the things that we know is that sport teaches loyalty, sport teaches sacrifice, sport teaches teamwork, but the problem we've found is that sport does not necessarily impart within the individual the values of honesty, justice, responsibility. Now you might ask the question How can that be if it teaches loyalty? Well one can be loyal to an organisation, not necessarily an honest individual. The characteristic and the values and the character behaviours that we typically have expected to be a result of sport participation has not. That athletes learn that loyalty is loyalty to the sporting organisation, loyalty to the coach, loyalty to the team, and yes, sport does teach teamwork. But because of the commercialisation related to sport, athletes are learning that the bottom line is what it all cost. And if I must win, in order to be successful, it may mean that I have to choose not to be honest and fair, you see. I take the position that without fair play we don't have sport, and therefore what we're teaching is not sportsmanship.

Amanda Smith: So by saying that sport may teach qualities, admirable qualities like loyalty but not necessarily teach qualities that you might put higher up the hierarchy, such as justice, fair play, that sort of thing, is that because sport is not capable of teaching those things, or that sport in the late 20th century has lost its way in terms of valuing those morals and ethics?

Doris Corbett: In part sport has lost its way. Traditionally when we talked about amateur sport versus professional sport, the idea behind amateur sport spoke to the philosophy that we engaged in sport for the fun of it, for the sake of the sport, for the sake of being a part of sport, for the joy, the pleasure, for the intrinsic values inherent in sport. Unfortunately, today we have moved to a corporate model, a business model, where the bottom line is 'Your job is to get the job done', and getting the job done speaks to the idea of winning. Get the job done, I don't care how you get the job done, get it done, win. Therefore I don't care whether you cheat, don't get caught cheating, the concern is, and the problem is, whether you got caught, not whether you cheated. So that is loyalty to the organisation of sport, the organisation of winning, not justice and honour and responsibility and concern for the team-mates, the respect for the opponents, and respect for sport.

Amanda Smith: Well how do you think an ethical framework might be reinvented in sport as we move into the 21st century?

Doris Corbett: As we move into this next millennium, if we're really serious about this whole idea of wanting to move to a better place for young people to experience sport, we have to recognise that we have to revise, redefine our definition of sport, and play, redefine the practice of sport, how we practice sport; we have to teach sport differently. Our perspective of what sport is has to change. Our values about what is acceptable conduct has to be revised. When I say this, it is in recognition that very seldom do people talk about what their values are. Therefore for the most part, I think coaches, administrators, associated with sport, do not know what their values are, do not know what is right. And until you ask the question ‘What is the right thing to do?’ you perhaps do not know what is right. Perhaps you do not know what you believe and what you value, and without those two things in place, how do you know what is the correct, right thing to do?

And so coaches and athletes, and people associated with the sporting community have not stopped and taken a moment to find out if the behaviour that is being presented is the behaviour they believe in and value and would want to endorse, and communicate that message to the young people that they have responsibility for.

Amanda Smith: Sports sociologist, Doris Corbett from Howard University in the United States.

And good news, Doris, some people have started talking about ethical values in sports. This week, the Institute for Values Research as the University of New South Wales held a seminar on this very subject, attended by sports administrators and academics. One of those in attendance was William Baker, a former American College footballer, who was in Australia to also deliver the 1999 New College Lecture, 'If Christ Came to the Sydney Olympics'. And William Baker disagrees with the idea that professional sport has eroded the ethical values that amateur sport once upheld.

William Baker: Well some people view that as a kind of dismal and regrettable development. I don't see it that way, I think we're better off to have dispensed with that amateur code, because it was a class, bias based code of ethics, it was for the upper classes, and essentially it excluded the masses, the hoi polloi, like you and me. And I think we're better off without that code. Frankly, I don't think professionals love the game any less than amateurs, and that's just a bad rap that professional athletes - nobody can play high level football, cricket, tennis whatever, without being hungry to compete and hungry to win, and loving the game.

Amanda Smith: But if we no longer have the kind of ethical framework around that code of amateurism, what are we left with?

William Baker: Well we certainly are left now with written codes, and with the spirit of the game, that still gets enforced, and one reads the paper any week after any major sporting event and there is always a recapping and a revisiting of untoward incidents on the field, and we have governing bodies to deal with that. Now governing bodies cannot create a spirit that we would like to think that the amateur code does, but no, I think the game itself breeds a kind of athletic and spirit of fair play, always intentioned with the need to win, the desire to win, but I would say that the structuring of the game in the modern world, has replaced that old, very vague and very discriminatory amateur code.

Amanda Smith: Now what about professional sportspeople who might play with integrity, but who don't behave with propriety off the field? Like the drunk and disorderly behaviour of Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting earlier this year; or Australian Rugby League Test Captain, Brad Fittler?

Simon Tatz was another speaker at this week's Sport and Ethics Seminar. He's Sports Adviser to Senator Kate Lundy, the Shadow Minister for Sport. And Simon believes that we're generally much too lenient on athletes who behave badly or commit offences off the field.

Simon Tatz: Oh most definitely; I think we have two sets of rules, one is for elite athletes, those in the public eye and those that are sort of representing Australia, or at that peak level, and one for the ordinary citizen, and I think that the public is aware of that double standard and is quite cynical towards it.

Amanda Smith: Well what examples of that come to your mind?

Simon Tatz: Well there's quite a number of examples. What happens is that when sportspeople go before the courts, we had one here in the ACT where a cricketer was charged with assault, and former Australian Captain, Mark Taylor, came to the court as a character witness, and he said to the judge, (I'm paraphrasing here) but he said, 'You know, if this man is found guilty of assault, it would be detrimental to his career.' Now I submit that anyone found guilty of assault, that would be detrimental to their career, but as a sportsperson it's somehow seen that 'Look, if we put this person in jail, or if we take away their capacity to participate in sport, that's somehow a worse punishment.' Whereas I believe that considering their position and their elevated status in society, sportspeople at that level, deserve greater penalties and greater sanctions when they commit offences. And as we've seen with Rugby League, particularly this year, a number of incidents that are actually criminal in nature, you know, destroying hotel rooms, groping women, urinating in public, behaviour like that, that if an ordinary person committed that, they could be subject to criminal prosecution. But when it happens to an elite sportsperson, they use their position to justify leniency in the eyes of both the courts and the public.

Amanda Smith: But isn't a bit of hard drinking and larrikin behaviour a part of the culture of sports like football and cricket that we don't mind, that makes players seem more human, more like us than just athletic machines?

Simon Tatz: Well I certainly have no objection to an athlete enjoying alcohol, or a night out, or whatever, but in every work environment there are written and unwritten codes about behaviour, and what you can and can't do. And everyone accepts this, whether it's in a codified set of rules or whether it's just informal. But when we get to sportsmen (and I exclude women, because it's mostly men) they say 'Well it's part of the football culture; it's part of the cricket culture.' But it's not part of the culture for say Indian or Pakistani cricketers, or it's not part of the culture in other sports, and even within some clubs you notice that in the football codes, AFL, Rugby League, Rugby Union, some clubs and some players are always in the news or in trouble, and others you never hear about. So in other words, it's not an across-the-board thing, it is possible for players and clubs to modify their behaviour and to conform to the highest level of ethical standards.

Amanda Smith: So what, you see it in terms of a kind of mutual obligation; to have our respect, they need to be showing the highest standards of behaviour?

Simon Tatz: Exactly. There are two things that I see in this. One is that there is a mutual obligation; in return for the outrageous amounts of money and the celebrity status that we accord our athletes, in return they must be role models to the community, and in their public persona, demonstrate or at least uphold high ethical standards.

The second thing is, and I've raised this before, if the behaviour that some of these athletes have gotten away with, if say a politician was to be found drunk and disorderly, or a High Court Judge, or a police officer or a doctor, we would quite rightly demand strict sanctions and penalties against them. But when it happens to athletes, it's excused as 'Well, you know, it's just a night out' or 'You know, he's entitled to, sort of the pressures of sport', and in that way they're saying, 'We're different than the rest of the community. Because we play sport, the rules that govern society and the values and norms that everyone else has to live by, they don't mean anything to us, they shouldn't be applied to us. Why? Because I can hit a cricket ball better than anybody else, or I can kick a football further, or whatever the case may be.' They say, 'Those rules aren't for us, we have a different set of rules.' And I don't think that's correct and I don't think that's what the public expects out of our representative athletes.

Amanda Smith: And here's a lesson in athlete conduct while on tour, from the legendary Australian cricketer, 'Warwick Todd.'

Warwick Todd: I know how easy it is for young players touring England for the first time to be led astray, so I've decided to take a few of the junior boys, Dizzy, Ponce, Gilly, aside and explain the importance of training and discipline, over a few beers. I then elaborated on the point at several night clubs before drumming it home at the hotel bar. By the time they staggered up to the rooms around 4.30am, I think I'd made it clear what an Ashes Tour is all about.

Amanda Smith: The Australian cricket team's infamous 'Warwick Todd', aka comedian Tom Gleisner.

Well Simon Tatz, parodies aside, what do you think sportspeople can or should do as far as accepting responsibility for modifying their behaviour if necessary, on or off the field?

Simon Tatz: Well certainly what we're seeing now with the incredible scrutiny that athletes are under, there's a greater self-awareness of behaviour. And the example that is most pertinent is Martina Hingis who just before the US Open, hired a new coach. It wasn't a tennis coach but a media relations coach, and this followed her unethical behaviour at the French Open, and it shows that Hingis took seriously her public image and the behaviour, both on and off the court, that is expected of her.

Amanda Smith: Yes, just remind us what that unethical behaviour was at the French Open.

Simon Tatz: Well with Hingis, she basically threw a temper tantrum at the French Open; she stormed off the court, she had to be brought back in tears by her mother, and the crowd just booed her mercilessly, because in tennis, her behaviour was considered grossly unethical. She was graceless, she had bad sportsmanship, she brought the game into disrepute, and to her credit, she's recognised that and then set about to ensure that behaviour is never replicated. And perhaps Hingis has learnt the lesson that the public do not like unethical behaviour; they do not like multimillionaires behaving like spoilt brats and getting favourable treatment simply because of their position as world champions.

Amanda Smith: But do you reckon that would have been her or her sponsors who demanded that change?

Simon Tatz: (laughs) That's a very good question. And certainly sponsors are playing an increasingly important role in demanding certain ethical standards. However as we know, sponsors also do like the bad boy image as well, and have been known to sort of support a little bit of larrikinism, and certainly I'm not arguing that players, especially Australians, who are known for that, a little bit of flair larrikinism, a little bit of character, should not be encouraged. What I'm talking about is behaviour which goes against the spirit of the game, or which is completely unacceptable in any other walk of life, or any other workplace that professional athletes seem to get away with, and justify, by saying 'Hey, I'm a sportsman, or a sportswoman, you know, I shouldn't be expected to uphold those sorts of ethical standards.

Amanda Smith: Well if we're going to demand high standards of behaviour from athletes, what about the power-brokers of sport? Like the International Olympic Committee, and its tarnished image as a result of the bribery and corruption scandals that broke earlier this year? Simon Longstaff from the St James Ethics Centre, and who we heard from earlier in the program, has been advising the IOC on how they might clean up their act, and restore our faith.

Simon Longstaff: What I have tried to encourage is for the Olympics movement to go back, if you like, to the Olympic Charter, and to the sense of the ideals on which the movement was founded. Not because that's just a strategy which would allow them to provide some kind of surety about what the organisation is supposed to be about, but equally because I believe that the world at large, the community at large, actually wants this to be true. That it would be a better world if you could think that the Olympics, with the scale which it brings to bear, and the fairly elemental nature of what goes on in a really good sporting contest, if all of that idealism about courage and integrity and other things, could be true. Because I think as a world community, we're a bit sick and tired of being disappointed at every juncture about what was going on there.

Amanda Smith: Yes, do you think there is a will within the International Olympic Committee to do some of the things you're talking about? Because I think from the outside, a lot of people feel pretty cynical that these are just a bunch of rorters.

Simon Longstaff: Yes. We're in a very difficult situation. It reminds me often of the way the poor old Australian banks are often treated. You know, if you keep telling people for long enough that they're bastards, then eventually they'll say, 'Well look, what's the point of trying to be something different?' so I think we've got to hold out the possibility to the IOC and to people associated with the movement, that they're not like that, and in fact if you think about it, the vast majority of the people involved in the Olympics are sportsmen and sportswomen who are just sort of there, striving with their all, to compete on the occasion, and none of this really comes to bear.

But are they serious? I think that more and more people that I meet are, they like the vision of what the Games could be about; I think that they are almost overwhelmed by the complexity that such a change involves, because you can't tinker with bits like the standard of accommodation or travel and things like that. If you're going to deal with the ethics of the Olympics it's got to be across the board; everything you would look at, all your relationships, the way you spend money and everything that you do would need to be consistent, otherwise it looks like certain areas are being chosen just for strategic reasons.

So I'm not cynical. I have to admit that I perhaps am more optimistic than others who've been very closely attached, but I see a number of people who are really invested with goodwill, who are struggling to know how would you make this real. And all I've been able to say to them is, 'Well it's difficult, but there are means to be taken if only you're prepared to do it.' But getting a coalition around that notion of course is immensely problematic.

OLYMPIC HYMN

Amanda Smith: That's the Olympic Hymn, from the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.

Now Simon Longstaff mentioned the ideals on which the Olympic movement was founded, and as we're this week just 12 months out from the Sydney Olympics, I thought it might be interesting to look back at where those ideals actually came from, and how they were shaped by the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin. According to William Baker, who delivered the 1999 New College Lectures this week at the University of New South Wales, 'If Christ came to the Sydney Olympics', the influences on de Coubertin were religious: a mixture of French catholicism and English muscular Christianity, with its amateur ideals of sport.

William Baker: Well first of all, Baron de Coubertin was upper-class. He was a faded aristocrat in France and he came right out of that world of amateur athletics that the upper classes adhered to. And he took many of his ideas from the English Public Schools, which is dead on centre of what we're talking about here. So that was the base from which the Olympics were created.

Amanda Smith: So what, he read 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'?

William Baker: He read 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'. As a 12-year-old, he read a French translation of 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'; he was enamoured of this frolicking boys' school, football-playing situation, where athleticism was held important, and fostered. He was impressed with schoolmasters who not only accepted it but supposedly encouraged it. And that was the world that he tried to recreate in the early Olympic Games. And certainly it was his idea originally that the Games be amateur.

Amanda Smith: What about other influences? What about his own French background?

William Baker: He came out of a French Catholic background, and it was important to him that he create in the Olympics a kind of ritual and a kind of mythology that was quasi-religious, if you will. He in fact became a humanist; he was originally trained for the priesthood, or his parents wanted him to go into the Catholic priesthood. He went to a Catholic school, he did his vespers, he did his mass, he did his religious studies, but he lost his faith. His creeds fell apart in his hands. And so he turned to that French humanist religion, the so-called religion of humanity, by Auguste Comte and he fashioned the Olympic Games in that new humanist direction, as he understood it. But he brought to that his Catholic heritage of ritual and mythology, and ceremony and processions and hymns and all that sort of thing. So lots of people have noticed that, especially opening ceremonies in the modern Olympic Games, is often like being in church; at least there is a part of the spectacle that is very church-like.

Amanda Smith: And what informed his kind of famous, much-repeated, in various forms, idea that these Games are not about winning, but about participating?

William Baker: Well that again is a classic kind of amateur ideal. But in truth, he picked that phrase up from an American bishop who was in London in 1908, preaching a sermon at the end of the first week of the London Olympics, and a fellow by the name of Powell, but a bishop from Pennsylvania. He was a guest speaker at St Paul's Cathedral in London. He was concerned about the nationalism that was intruding upon the Games and he was saying to the athletes and to the Olympic officials in the audience, 'The important thing is not the flag, and it's not the winning for exterior purposes or ulterior motives, the important thing is the game itself and competing, whether you win or not even.' And Coubertin sort of had a flash of light with that, and he went out and frequently referred to this bishop as the fellow who had reminded him and had phrased for him that famous saying 'The important thing is not winning, but participating.'

Amanda Smith: And I suppose the latter-day version of that is competing to achieve your 'personal best'.

Well that's the program for this week. Michael Shirrefs produces The Sports Factor, and I'm Amanda Smith. I'll be back with you next Friday.

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