Explaining elite athletes’ corruption behaviours: a comparative analysis of doping and match fixing

Stacie Jade Gray; R. Porreca

doi:10.1080/19406940.2023.2290118

Explaining elite athletes’ corruption behaviours: a comparative analysis of doping and match fixing

Stacie Jade Gray, R. Porreca

School of Marketing and Management

University of Northampton

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Through a qualitative application of the theory of planned behaviour, the research aimed to increase understanding of elite athletes’ reasons behind intentional and actual doping and match fixing. Adopting a descriptive phenomenological approach, media interviews, admission statements and testimonies from dopers and match fixers were analysed using deductive content analysis. The final sample comprised 21 elite athlete match fixers from 15 nations and 33 elite athlete dopers from 10 nations. Whilst all three theories of planar behaviour variables were found to influence doping, only attitudinal and subjective normative beliefs influenced match fixing. Despite some similarities between doping and match fixing themes, differences exist between the primary corruption motives and unique doping attitudes emerged. By identifying the reasons behind elite athletes’ engagement in corruption the results can be used to better inform the design of preventative doping and match fixing strategies within elite sport.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	75-92
Number of pages	18
Journal	International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics
Volume	16
Issue number	1
Early online date	4 Dec 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2023.2290118
Publication status	Published - 2 Jan 2024

Bibliographical note

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Keywords

Corruption
doping
elite sport
match fixing
theory of planned behaviour

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

Access to Document

10.1080/19406940.2023.2290118Licence: CC BY

Pure-Porreca-2023-VoRFinal published version, 905 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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Explaining elite athletes’ corruption behaviours: a comparative analysis of doping and match fixing

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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