Professor Mark Dodds Materials (Summer 2019 CLE Program)

Using the Law to Combat Sport Corruption

 

Professor Mark Dodds (L’05)

Associate Professor, Sport Management Department,

SUNY Cortland, Cortland, New York

Mark Dodds is a Professor teaching sport marketing and sport law at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. He holds a J.D. from Marquette University Law School, a M.B.A. from Robert Morris University and a B.S. in Marketing Management from Syracuse University. While at MULS, he earned a Sport Law Certificate from the National Sport Law Institute. His research area is focused on legal issues in sport business, international sport, sponsorship activation, and legal issues with internships. He has published articles in journals such as: Journal of Brand Strategy, Journal of Sponsorship, Marquette Sports Law Review, Case Studies in Sport Management, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, Journal of Sponsorship, International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing and College Athletics and the Law. He co-edited the award-winning Encyclopedia of Sports Management and Marketing and a special motorsports issue of International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing.

 

Prior to arriving at SUNY Cortland, Mark worked in the sport marketing industry for over 12 years. He lives in Cortland, New York with his wife and two kids. 

 

 

This presentation examines the legal tools being used to combat sport corruption. Maennig (2005) defined two types of sport corruption: competition corruption and management corruption. Competition corruption involves athletes, sporting officials or non-athletes trying to influence the outcome of the competition. Match-fixing is an example of competition corruption and focuses on the in-game or end result of the contest. Spot-fixing is corruption of the game that is unrelated to the final score of the event (such as kicking the ball out of bounds, a double fault, etc.).

Management corruption involves sport organizations or sport officials manipulating business decisions (Maennig, 2005) often using active or passive bribery. The prevention of management corruption has led the United Nations to work with countries, sport organizations and sponsors to prevent bribery in sport (United Nations Global Compact, 2014).

Using a case study format, anti-corruption laws and other novel legal theory will be examined through real-world, infamous scandals. For instance, the 2015 FIFA bribery scandal used mail fraud to charge fourteen officials in connection with the 2010 World Cup bidding process. The law and its effectiveness will be explored.

Other scandals will be investigated. The Lance Armstrong doping scandal featuring the False Claims Act as Floyd Landis and the US Postal Service attempted to recoup more than $30 million dollars in sponsorship money.

The 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic bribery scandal led to Salt Lake City organizing committee members who faced fifteen criminal charges for providing more than $1.2 million in cash and gifts (including a knee replacement surgery) to entice IOC members to support its bid for the 2002 Winter Games. Despite an overwhelming amount of evidence, the prosecution failed to convict the members using traditional bribery laws.

There are examples of sponsor corruption scandals that impact sport. The USA uses the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to combat this type of sport corruption. Weatherford International used on-site hospitality from the 2006 World Cup to bribe officials which resulted in penalties of over $120 million (plus $115 million investigation costs) and lack of cooperation fine. BHP Billiton used sponsorship benefits from 2008 Olympics to bribe public officials and incurred $25 million fine. Bilfinger Engineering was accused of paying bribes to public officials to secure security command contracts at twelve host cities for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

The recent Adidas / NCAA basketball corruption scandal found three Adidas employees guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy in what could become a far-reaching issue for many colleges involving Adidas, Nike and Under Armour sponsored programs.

Finally, the presentation examines the Swiss Lex FIFA anti-bribery laws. More than sixty international sport organizations, including the IOC and FIFA, are headquartered in Switzerland. Switzerland revised its criminal code to criminalize active and passive bribery involving sport organizations and its senior officials. Although this law has not been used in a sport context yet, it is hoped that this legislation deters future sport bribery scandals.

 

 

Reference list

Statutes/Codes

 

Cases

 

Articles/Reports