Kobiela, Filip

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

Fair Play

REVISTA DE FILOSOFÍA, ÉTICA Y DERECHO DEL DEPORTE

www.upf.edu/revistafairplay

!!!
Watching fixed sport. An 
imaginary dialogue.
!!!
Filip Kobiela

The University School of Physical Education in Krakow, Poland
!! !!!
Citar este artículo como: Filip Kobiela (2014): Watching fixed sport. An imaginary 
dialogue, Fair Play. Revista de Filosofía, Ética y Derecho del Deporte, vol. 2 n.1, 
83-88 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BARCELONA, 27 de Abril de 2014 !!!!!!!!!!
Fair Play  ISSN:2014-9255                                                                                                   !82
!!!
Watching fixed sport. An imaginary dialogue. 
Filip Kobiela 
The University School of Physical Education in Krakow, Poland !
A group of four friends meets every week to watch a soccer match. Today they have 
met again, a bit earlier than usual, and before the match starts, they are going to 
discuss breaking news. There are serious suspicions that a game they have watched 
some time ago, was fixed, and it is that piece of news that is an immediate cause of 
their discussion. It happens that our friends, apart from watching sport, also read 
books about watching sport, and they have learned from a bestselling book on that 
topic that two of them share a partisan attitude, whereas the other two share a purist 
attitude. But the piece of news allowed to reveal another distinction and another 
coalition of members of our group. Let us listen to their discussion. 
!
- Victoria: As you know, the most important thing for me and my colleagues - fans of 
our club - is to see our team winning, and we won, didn't we? Well, they are saying the 
game was fixed, but it is life - it is just another extraordinary factor, like sudden 
shower, referee's mistake, bad luck etc. After all, sport is war without shooting, and 
some tricks are a part of war. Is corruption not fair? If you really love your team, you 
are always on its side, even if something goes wrong. It is like a being a parent. 
- Frank: I am also a partisan, but I have to admit that I strongly disagree with your 
viewpoint. Do not think that my view, as opposed to yours, is caused by my different 
affiliation. I am not against match-fixing just because my team lost the 'game'. I know 
many supporters of your team, Victoria, who share my viewpoint on this match. It was 
not a real game, so no team won it; it is more like both teams lost it. What I am seeking 
for in watching sport is a real victory of my team, and I would rather see my team 
losing a real game than see it winning a fake, fixed one. Perhaps we have different 
notions of winning, haven't we? 
- Grace: Dear friends, with all respect, from a purist perspective your controversy is 
almost meaningless. I am looking for a beauty in sport. The game was beautiful, and 
Fair Play  ISSN:2014-9255                                                                                                   !83
nothing has changed with this piece of news. Think about fake Rembrandt painting - if 
it is good enough, so that you cannot say it is fake, your aesthetic experience is 
identical. If I am not going to buy it, I do not care about its authenticity. I also do not 
care about game's authenticity, based on the same principle I really do not care about 
winning and losing - it is partisans' problem, not mine. 
- Apollo: Not only partisans, Grace, not only... Think about my attitude: as a dedicated 
purist I am also seeking for beauty in sport, but I do not not accept a beauty of a game 
if it is fixed. To transform our discussion into a bit more abstract dimension, I would 
like to indicate that there is an analogy between our friends - partisans' - controversy 
over the notion of winning and our controversy over the notion of beauty. If I were 
interested in pure beauty without the taste of authentic competition, I would choose a 
ballet performance. Apparently, although I value beauty in sport higher than winning, I 
value it only as a part of real effort of winning. Now, something is revealing itself: the 
line dividing me and you, Grace, and at the same time dividing Victoria and Frank, is 
obviously not identical with the line dividing partisans and purists. We need a new 
distinction, and I propose two descriptive terms to indicate the two new attitudes: 
authenticity-lover and fake-tolerant. The new distinction is, so to speak, orthogonal 
to the partisan vs. purist distinction. In our company, Frank, the partisan and me, a 
purist, are authenticity-lovers, whereas Victoria, the partisan, and Grace, a purist, are 
fake-tolerants. 
- Grace: I think your new distinction, Apollo, is sound; maybe I can offer an 
alternative or supplemental terminology. Both 'authenticity-lover' and 'fake-tolerant' 
have epistemological and perhaps ethical connotations, whereas from my aesthetic 
perspective, 'improvisation-lover' and 'scripted-event-tolerant' would be more 
accurate. Think about an analogy between sports and some TV productions. What 
attracts the audience to the so called 'reality shows' is apparent authenticity, although in 
fact (what was not broadly known, at least as these shows became popular) it is not a 
full improvisation of participants - crucial events are arranged, and the whole action is 
scripted, otherwise it would be extremely boring, like a real life. (Just think about this 
Fair Play  ISSN:2014-9255                                                                                                   !84
monstrous boring 0:0 soccer matches - how easily they could be made watchable with 
a scenario!) But there is a tension in these shows between 'reality', 'documentary', and 
'fake', 'feature'. I tolerate this hidden scripted mechanism because it makes the show 
more attractive, but I can imagine a person who would feel mislead, because it was not 
fully 'real'. It is a matter of an opinion concerning this pseudo-authenticity. The similar 
applies to sport. 
- Frank: As for match-fixing, I am really worried about sport's future. Even incidental 
events might undermine our basic belief in sport as a very special oasis of happiness, 
or - in this context - oasis of fairness. Ideas have consequences, attitudes have 
consequences as well, and I am even shocked by your, Victoria and Grace, exotic fake-
tolerant coalition! You do not seem to realize how immoral and dangerous your 
attitude is. In longer perspective, it might even transform our sports into kind of 
scripted quasi-sport performances, like professional wrestling WWE. But my main 
objection against match-fixing is simple: it is not honest. If you are going to defend it, 
ask organizers to put inscription on the tickets: ‘fixed game’. We would find out then 
who would buy them. 
- Grace: Frank, I fully understand your worry - it is good to be fully frank, at least 
among friends. I am playing devil's advocate a bit, but let me express my viewpoint. I 
am watching sport with an attitude similar to your attitude towards wrestling (WWE). 
For me sport is, first of all, a kind of entertainment. What is its real position in culture? 
It is part of low culture, just 'sport entertainment'. It is good that we have a choice - 
strip-tease, circus show, soccer match - different kinds of shows requiring physical 
skills of the actors. I am simply not buying this, forgive me, moral or Olympic 
propaganda. Does it matter whether an individual or a team 'wins' or 'loses'? What is its 
relevance to the quality of the show? Think about another example: how absurd it 
would be to support an actor in a theater against another actor in the same play! So, to 
be clear, I am not defending any form of match-fixing but I am just explaining my way 
of watching sport. 
Fair Play  ISSN:2014-9255                                                                                                   !85
- Frank: After big corruption scandals one might say that our initial belief in fair, not-
fixed sport is naive. But at the same time we might say that watching sport without 
assumption that the players are genuinely trying to achieve a goal under a just referee 
is, at best, superficial. At least, we have clear conscience because considering things in 
wider context, any form of match-fixing essentially contradicts the real sense of game.  
- Victoria: There is a kind of noble uprightness in your condemnation of match-fixing, 
Frank, as well as in your worry about consequences of the attitude Grace shares with 
me. From this perspective, my situation is even worse than Grace's because her 
complete lack of interest in winning (or rather in 'real' winning) makes her attitude 
apparently more innocent and less fishy than mine. But I am not going to defend 
myself. Do not forget that winners are not judged... I can only stress that among people 
who share my attitude there are the most consistent supporters of the team, although 
not necessarily the most consistent supporters of the game. I perceive result of a 
particular game as a fragment of complicated pattern in which my team is my constant 
point of affiliation and I will stick to it even if it is accused of match-fixing. 
- Apollo: Dear friends, I think we are now ready to discuss a spectrum of attitudes 
towards winning that is rooted in the very notion of 'winning'. Let me go back to the 
difference between Victoria's and Franks' understanding of winning that appeared, 
without a proper analysis, at the beginning of our discussion. For Frank, what counts is 
a lusory goal of game - achieving a prelusory goal (which is a state of affairs that 
consists in putting the ball into the goal) only by obeying the rules. And Frank expects 
that a referee will do his job properly by indicating which achievements of prelusory 
goal count as valid goals. So, apart from lusory and prelusory goals, we have also the 
third kind of goal - an institutional goal - a state of affairs that consists in referee's 
allowing of the goal. I have the impression that while supporting her team, Victoria 
values this third kind of goal - institutional goal – more than the lusory goal. 
- Victoria: Granted. Think about Maradona's 'hand of God'. In this famous action, he 
definitely achieved prelusory goal of soccer, but because he did it by hand, he didn't 
achieved lusory goal of soccer. Anyway, what finally counts is referee's decision - 
Fair Play  ISSN:2014-9255                                                                                                   !86
'institutional goal', as you put it, Apollo, and its superiority over 'lusory goal' is clear. 
The goal triad we are talking about is intimately interconnected in pro sport, and 
defining victory as achieving lusory goal without reference to institutional goal is an 
illusion. Are you really ready to persuade all Maradona's team fans that he didn't score 
a goal and for this reason his team didn't win the game? 
- Apollo: O.K., guys, I can only add, that if you analyze sport in terms of means-end 
analysis, you, partisans, are more concerned in end whereas we, purists, are more 
interested in means. Now, we can go back to our spectrum of attitudes: Victoria seems 
to absolutize winning (understood as an institutional fact), Frank accepts only winning 
understood as an achievement of the lusory goal of the game, I value means (in terms 
of their aesthetic qualities) over the end, but only if they are a part of a real effort to 
win, whereas Grace shares my interest in aesthetic qualities of means, but she 
completely ignores winning as an important factor. Now, I believe we are in a position 
to sketch a table that summarizes our discussion. The spectrum I am talking about 
starts with Victoria and progresses clockwise to Grace. 
!
!
- Frank: Thank you, Apollo. Now, I believe we understand our own attitudes better 
and the other spectators' attitudes as well. Watching games could be even more 
interesting! But I think it is a good moment to stop because...  
- Victoria: ... referee's blowing the whistle. Let us find out who will win! 
- Grace: ...rather admire the beauty of the game... 
- Apollo  ...and watch carefully if you can see any symptoms of match-fixing... 
                      x Fake-tolerant Authenticity-lover
Partisan Victoria Frank
Purist Grace Apollo
Fair Play  ISSN:2014-9255                                                                                                   !87
!
The texts our friends were reading before the discussion, included, among others:  
Loland S., Fair Play. A moral norm system, Routledge, London and New York, 2002. 
Mumford S., Watching sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion for the Spectator, 
Routledge, London 2011.  
Suits, B., The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Broadview Press, 2005.
Fair Play  ISSN:2014-9255                                                                                                   !88


Watching fixed sport. An imaginary dialogue,

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert