Match-fixing, a normalized phenomenon?

Match-fixing has presented itself as a contested and widespread threat to the integrity of sport. Simultaneously with multiple match-fixing scandals that have come to light in various sports and countries, the academic interest in match-fixing has increased during the past decades. However, match-fixing research still remains empirically and theoretically understudied.

This dissertation helps to fill this void by exploring, mapping, and understanding match-fixing in sport. The four original studies included in this doctoral dissertation shed light on different perspectives (i.e., moral development, normalization of corruption, moral disengagement, and multi-stakeholder) of match-fixing.

Among other findings, this dissertation reveals the twofold nature of match-fixing and its link with a lack of moral awareness and judgment of the issue, the embedded and taken for granted nature of sporting-related match-fixing, the influence of moral disengagement mechanisms, and the varying attitudes towards and experiences with match-fixing among internal stakeholders in sport.

By linking and discussing the findings through the lens of normalization, this dissertation offers a more complete understanding of match-fixing and indicates how certain forms of match-fixing become normalized instead of problematized in numerous sports.