While there is no deny­ing sport has the po­ten­tial to de­liv­er so­cial ben­e­fits, it is im­por­tant that not too many non-sport­ing ex­pec­ta­tions are placed on ath­letes and sport in gen­er­al. Just like every­thing in life, there are po­ten­tial­ly dark sides that can be as­so­ci­at­ed with sport.

It is quite easy to be­come over­whelmed by the eu­pho­ria that sport gen­er­ates es­pe­cial­ly at na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al events such as the FI­FA World Cup, Olympics, Su­per Bowl, as well as the in­di­vid­ual per­for­mances of ath­letes and teams.

Sport is gen­er­al­ly seen as harm­less, in fact some see it as bor­der­ing on be­ing sacro­sanct. Some see sport as pro­vid­ing the an­swer to deal­ing with many so­cial is­sues, such as de­viance, be­cause sports in­her­ent­ly build so­cial char­ac­ter and team­work.

How­ev­er, in re­cent times sport has be­come laden with a se­ries of un­de­sir­able, un­eth­i­cal acts. These acts (cheat­ing, cor­rup­tion, racism, sex­ism, etc) have man­i­fest­ed them­selves across var­i­ous sport­ing dis­ci­plines and have in­volved play­ers, man­agers, fans and even the pres­i­dent of a coun­try. It is worth­while not on­ly to ac­knowl­edge that these un­want­ed acts ex­ist but al­so take mea­sures to en­sure that they are prop­er­ly po­liced and every mea­sure tak­en to pre­vent their con­tin­u­a­tion.

As sport has be­come com­mer­cialised, the stakes have in­creased. Sport, for some, is not on­ly about the ethos of fair play and match­ing of nat­ur­al abil­i­ty and skills. Win­ning is not on­ly im­por­tant to the ath­letes; win­ning is im­por­tant to man­agers, sup­port staff, gov­ern­ments, le­git­i­mate and il­le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es and fans. Sport is a prod­uct that is sold on the mar­ket.

Re­cent­ly in Spain, the un­sa­vory taste of racism was high­light­ed when Brazil­ian Dan­ny Alves was sub­ject­ed to racist taunts by a spec­ta­tor who­even­tu­al­ly threw a ba­nana at Alves. In Italy, Mario Balot­teli was sub­ject­ed to racist taunts by chil­dren while the na­tion­al team trained pri­or to the FI­FA World Cup in Brazil.

At the World Cup, fans from Croa­t­ia and Rus­sia dis­played an­ti-Se­mit­ic ban­ners in their games against Brazil and South Ko­rea, re­spec­tive­ly. The Russ­ian fans dis­played ban­ners of the Celtic Cross, a sym­bol that was used by the neo-Nazis and white su­prema­cists groups through­out the world. Brazil­ian fans were al­so ac­cused at hurl­ing ho­mo­pho­bic com­ments at the Mex­i­can goal­keep­er when the two teams clashed.

Luis Suarez was pre­pared to bite his way through Ital­ian de­fend­er Gior­gio Chielli­ni shoul­der in an ef­fort to earn a de­ci­sive win over Italy. Fi­fa banned Suarez for four months from all foot­ball re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties as well as levied a fine of 100,000 Swiss Francs (US$ 111,000). It was not the first time that Suarez have had to be sanc­tioned for bit­ing. He served a 10-game ban in the Pre­mier League in 2013 for bit­ing Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic and in 2010 com­mit­ted a sim­i­lar of­fence while play­ing for Dutch club Ajax Am­s­ter­dam. The Uruguayan Pres­i­dent, Jose Mu­ji­ca, re­ferred to the ban on Suarez as a 'fas­cist ban' and that "Fi­fa are a bunch of sons of bitch­es." Suarez's na­tion­al hero sta­tus height­ened in Uruguay.

Dutch strik­er Ar­jen Robben has re­in­forced his rep­u­ta­tion as a 'div­er' giv­en his an­tics in Hol­land's sec­ond round match against Mex­i­co. The fact that he in­di­cat­ed that he did dive in an ear­li­er at­tempt to win a penal­ty kick in the game high­lights the ex­tent play­ers are will­ing to go in or­der to win.

At the World Cup in 1982, West Ger­many's goal­keep­er Har­ald Schu­mach­er knocked out France's Patrick Bat­tis­ton un­con­scious for 30 min­utes with a reck­less tack­le to foil a goal scor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty. At that same World Cup, Aus­tria and West Ger­many were ac­cused of con­spir­ing to en­sure that they both qual­i­fied for the sec­ond round of match­es at the ex­pense of Al­ge­ria. These two in­ci­dences con­tin­ue to haunt Ger­many's foot­ball his­to­ry.

These acts should not be tak­en mild­ly and for­got­ten. They should form part of ath­lete de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes. It is im­por­tant that coach­es, man­agers, par­ents and sup­port­ers in­still the ba­sic ethos of fair play from ear­ly so that it will be­come ha­bit­u­al not on­ly their sport­ing dis­ci­pline but in every as­pect of their lives. It is im­per­a­tive that what is con­sid­ered as char­ac­ter build­ing traits are con­sis­tent with what is con­sid­ered as ac­cept­able be­hav­iour across every as­pect of so­cial life.

Coach­es, par­ents, ad­min­is­tra­tors and every­one in­volved in sports di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly must be pre­pared to dis­cuss with ath­letes es­pe­cial­ly ju­nior ath­letes the "rights" and "wrongs" about sports. These dis­cus­sions should be open and frank and should in­cor­po­rate re­al sit­u­a­tions which are abound­ing to­day in every dis­ci­pline. It is nev­er too ear­ly to start talk­ing to young­ster about the ug­ly side of sports. They should be pre­pared for all ex­pec­ta­tions.

Every prac­ti­cal mea­sure must be en­sued to en­sure that un­eth­i­cal acts do not be­come "nor­ma­tive" in sports. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there should not be any hasti­ness to put the tag of "role mod­el" on sports per­son­nel be­cause it may re­turn to "bite us."