Its hard to put into words what he was trying to say and not come off as soft on some forms of cheating as opposed to others….that said, I agree with the principle of what he is saying.
Match fixers destroy the sport. Whenever something remarkable happens you have that nagging thought in the back of your mind that its a setup. That takes away the spontaneous enjoyment of seeing an athlete, footballer, team do something amazing. Which negates the need for you to watch it live. After a while you only take a passing interest.
All cheats are scum but matchfixers are top of the crap heap and if Tim did do this then the life ban is required.
Totally 100% agree.
Sport is built on the idea that you can't predict the outcome and all parties are doing everything they can to win. The minute this becomes in doubt, whether fixing or fraud or tanking, the whole concept of sport falls apart.
It's like the day when you turn 9 and someone tells you that wrestling is staged, and for a lot of people that takes away most of the fun. It becomes more like a movie than a sport, and obviously there's no betting.
Just look at how aggressive cricket was towards match-fixing and how badly that tarnished the sport and reputations of certain players/countries. Tell me, for instance, that nobody thinks of match fixing when the Pakistan cricket team gets mentioned.
