All sport’s histories are riddled with games or matches where results did not go the way they should have due to an officiating error, a freakish event, or due to cheating. Of course the latter comes in various forms. We have the athlete who takes performance enhancing drugs. The one who tampers with an opponent’s equipment or even their own. Often there are some who are unaware that their management have paid off officials or have helped swap a urine sample.
In many sports when there is such blatant cheating as an athlete taking performance enhancing drugs they are stripped of their title and banned for a period of time. In Athletics if the athlete is part of a team the team is stripped of their medals. Whereas in some team sports the result stands even if one player fails a drug test.
There have been examples of blatant cheating where the result has remained as it was at the final whistle. Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal was clear as soon as the replays were shown to a global audience in Argentina’s 2-1 quarter final victory over England. There was no VAR in 1986. Today such a goal would not stand. However it did then and England flew home and Argentina lifted the World Cup for a second time.
In 2010 France found themselves in a playoff game against Ireland to qualify for the South Africa World Cup. The French managed to win the first game in Ireland to the tune of 1-0. In the return leg in Paris, the Irish were leading 1-0 when Thierry Henry prevented the ball from going out for a goal kick, by keeping the ball in play with his hand, he then played on and France scored. France went to the World cup finals Ireland didn’t. Again, even though it was clear for everyone to see on television, the powers that be did not over-rule the match officials.
Stanisława Walasiewicz is not a name many sports fans will recall, but the Polish born athlete emigrated to the United States with her parents when she was three months old. Despite growing up in America and competing in American athletic events prior to taking her oath of citizenship she decided to compete at the 1932 Olympic Games for Poland. Here she won the gold medal in the 100 yard dash and equalled the world record.
At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin she won silver finishing second to American Helen Stephens who was accused of being a man. Stanislawa returned to the United States and became an American citizen and anglicised her name to Stella Walsh. She married although this did not last long.
In 1980 Walsh was killed in a bank robbery in Cleveland. She was not involved but was in the wrong place at the wrong time. When the autopsy was carried out it was reported that she had no uterus, an abnormal urethra, and a non-functioning, underdeveloped penis, Her birth certificate recorded her as being female. In 1980 following her death she was accused of being male. She may well have been transgender. The first to win an Olympic gold medal. There were calls to strip her of that place in the record books, but her name stands.
Changing history retrospectively is a very dangerous thing to do unless it is for something as obvious as match-fixing or in fact taking performance enhancing drugs. It opens a Pandora’s box of issues, where do you draw the line? Can you judge yesterday by today’s standards? Do match officials today have more expertise than those of yesteryear?
At the weekend the World Boxing Council opted to present Australian champion Jeff Fenech with a World Championship belt for the Super Featherweight Division.
The WBC announced that they had asked officials in the current era to watch the World Title fight that Fenech had with Azumah Nelson in Las Vegas on the 28th June 1991. At the time the fight was ruled a controversial draw. Fenech along with all his supporters have always claimed he was robbed.
(This writer watched that bout live and was of the same opinion. He also ended up writing Azumah’s biography. The controversy was covered in detail here with both boxers airing their views as well as one of the judges).
Like many boxing matches this has been a fight that has been debated for over 30 years. Suddenly the WBC whose title was up for grabs has decided to say the Fenech won the bout and presented him with a World Championship belt.The officials who were WBC sanctioned officials have now been over-ruled. Apparently the official records will show the fight still as a draw but Fenech can claim to now be a four-time world champion.
To many this is justice. To fans of sport this is a very scary precedent that has now been set.
Boxing already has huge credibility issues and now retrospectively overturning decisions whether they be right or wrong is going to place the sport in an even darker place. Where does it put the WBC? Now many boxers will no doubt wonder what will happen to them if they win a close decision, or are involved in a draw what will happen down the track, will that decision be over-turned?
One wonders whether the WBC would have overturned the decision in the WBA World Title Fight between Scotland’s Ken Buchanan and legend-in-the-making Roberto Duran. The WBC had stripped Buchanan of their version of the title for failing to defend his belt against Pedro Carrasco. In the fight with Duran, another controversial one, Duran hit Buchanan after the bell with a low blow, his trainer the respected Gil Clancy claiming it was a knee to the groin. The referee awarded the bout to Duran claiming the blow that took Buchanan down was in the abdomen and therefore legal. As one person on social media asked, will they review the Marvin Hagler Sugar Ray Leonard bout? .
The point is boxing is littered with controversial decisions. Often decisions that have been manipulated by the boxers managers. It does not make it right, but everyone knows the odds when they climb through the ropes.
While this decision by the WBC may please Fenech, and finally give hime some peace, as this has eaten away at him for three decades. It will also satisfy his loyal followers, but one wonders what it will do for the sport and the reputation of the WBC.
What next? will they reverse the decision of “The Battle of the Long Count?”
Those who are in control at the present time are the guardians of history. The minute that they start to tamper with it all hell breaks loose, and as we are seeing we end up living in a world where it is hard to differentiate fact from fiction.
George Orwell summed it up best when he wrote “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history..”
