To Cheat or Not to Cheat
Soccer games in Europe are one of the most important phenomena that make millions of people to sit in front of a TV and wait for the outcome of some sort of a game for about two hours. This means that it is a huge industry and the outcome of the game is not only about the game and some fans losing and some winning but it is about who makes how much money from the start until the end of the game. Since this monetary outcome is much more important than one team proving itself superior to another, the incentive to win a game for the board members of that club and for the players becomes strongly related to their economical well being rather than just winning a 90-minute game.
This incentive brings up the incentive to cheat and to fix games for some board members, players and referees. Fixing games by bribing the referees or some players by the opposing team is of course illegal but how deterrent are the punishments?
Until this summer, the Turkish Super League was supposedly being played under fair conditions where no one cheats and everyone wins only because they deserved to. Many people already knew that this was not the case however the police and the Turkish Professional Football Discipline Committee was so loose in certain situations that there was literally no punishment for cheating up to some extent. Therefore, it was the strict dominant strategy for almost all of the clubs to cheat in some games to reserve the spot that they want in the ranking table at the end of the season. This can be modeled with the following matrix
Cheat Don’t Cheat
Cheat 10, 10 15, 0
Don’t Cheat 0, 15 10, 10
Therefore the top clubs who are running for the championship cheated at least once throughout the season. (This was confirmed by observing the investigations of police which was being held for the past four years but were revealed this summer)
This summer, the law was enforced on every club who had been cheating during this past year. Fenerbahce, who were the champions this past year was banned from the Champions League. Some players from the other clubs who were bribed by Fenerbahce board members, some Fenerbahce board members and Fenerbahce president was arrested. With the new way of applying laws, the matrix looks much different.
This situation can be modeled with the following matrix
Cheat Don’t Cheat
Cheat -5, -5 -5, 15
Don’t Cheat 15, -5 10, 10
With this new game, hopefully no club will decide to cheat as the strict dominant strategy with the new attitude of the police is definitely not to cheat for everyone on the Turkish Super League. This new reform in football in Turkey is hoped to create a better, fair and cleaner league.
Source:
http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action;jsessionid=5953485580BCB0C442ECC56501C7151B?newsId=254782