ABSTRACT
Scandals relating to sport are highly variable in nature, frequent and occupy extraordinary prominence in the media. They have in common with all other scandals elements of normative transgression, but also possess specific properties that are related to the socio-cultural positioning of sport in the multiple spaces between bounded local communities and seemingly boundless global cyberspace. A small sample of sport scandals during this century includes: French captain Zinedine Zidane head-butting Italian player Marco Materazzi and being sent off during the 2006 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup final in Berlin; American golfer Tiger Woods’s exposure as a serial adulterer in 2009; confirmation in 2013 of cyclist Lance Armstrong’s systematic, clandestine use of performance-enhancing drugs; the 2014 trial and jailing of Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp; arrests for corruption of senior officials attending the 2015 FIFA Congress in Zurich; and the 2016 revelation of Russia’s state-sponsored doping in Olympic and other sports.
