By the age of 5, we've been taught to appreciate sports for the love of the game. By the time we're 9, we get into sports for the social aspect, and by the time we're 15, we're in it for the competition.
Most people are driven by a passion for a sport, whether they play or watch it. Unfortunately, the big shots have taken out the innocence.
When you're watching your team play on TV, the last thing you want to worry about is the scandals and politics behind the scenes.
As far back as the 1919 World Series "Black Sox" scandal, game-fixing and betting have tainted fair play. Players from the Chicago White Sox agreed with gamblers to intentionally lose their games against the Cincinnati Reds.
Recently, Bob Woolmer, coach of the Pakistani cricket team, was killed in Jamaica during the Cricket World Cup allegedly because he was going to come clean in an upcoming book about illegal gambling and game-fixing in cricket.
Woolmer had supposedly known the names of people involved in cricket match-fixing, and both players and officials were involved. While this information is not certain, we should be concerned about the idea of using scandal as a motive.
It scares me that Woolmer's death could be a result of sports politics.
Last year in the Italian soccer league, five teams were involved in game-fixing scandals in which club owners and directors paid off referees. Juventus, the winner of the 2005-2006 season, was stripped of its last two titles and was relegated to a lower division.
Another attempted death came out of this scandal when Gianluca Pessotto, Juventus club sports director, tried to commit suicide because of the stress from the scandals associated with the club.
Consequences in such situations can be devastating for leagues, teams and players, but let's not forget about the fans.
When we support a team, we give the players our respect. If our team loses, we would be disappointed, but at least we can rest knowing the players competed fairly. However, if our team wins because games were fixed, we can only be heartbroken and disgraced.
We should rather lose with pride than win with shame.
On the upside, stricter rules have been applied on sports gambling and betting in the U.S. In Europe and around the world, it's still a huge issue.
Whatever the sport, we watch the games because we value a player's skills or a coach's strategies. It's fulfilling to yell at our teams through the TV as though they can hear us and to prove to our neighbors that our team will beat theirs anyday.
It's sad that the teams we have grown to love and the players we have learned to admire have to give up what they're good at and what we like to watch for the sake of politics.
However, remember that scandals are the exception, so don't stop supporting your team - for the love of the game.
Ban Barkawi can be reached at bbarkawi@theorion.com
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