Sport Corruption Vulnerability and Its’ Associated Risks Factors in Ethiopian Football and Athletics Sport Clubs

Abstract

Corruption in football and athletics clubs weakens integrity, with risks including match-fixing, bribery, and mismanagement. This might weak governance, financial distress, and lack of accountability worsen vulnerabilities, threatening fair play and sport development. Thus, the study focused on sport corruption vulnerability and its’ associated risks factors in Ethiopian football and Athletics sport clubs. The study research design was convergent Mixed Methods Design which involves field exploration of sport competition, phenomenological and survey strategy retrospective study design, document analysis, systematic observation, questionnaire and in-depth semi-structure interview. Football club players (n = 398) and athletics sport athletes (n =231) was sampled respectively. The variables of the study include sport corruption vulnerability and associated risk factors. The variables were measured using standardized questionnaire. The collected quantitative and qualitative data were entered and processed using SPSS Version 28 and MAXQDA version 24 respectively. Ordinal logistics regression was used to analyze the quantitative. The associated risk factors significantly influence sport corruption vulnerability in Ethiopian athletics and football clubs (p<0.001). The increase in one-unit of corruption perception is associated with a 112% increase in the odds of higher vulnerability (OR = 2.12). Furthermore, football was found to have a significantly higher vulnerability to corruption compared to athletics (p=0.02, OR = 1.65). The findings of this study reveal that there was   corruption vulnerability within Ethiopian athletics and football sport clubs, manifesting at individual, team, and organizational levels. Athletes, referees, coaches, and team leaders were identified as primary participants in these corrupt practices. The major forms of corruption observed include the misuse of inside information, bribery of officials, falsification, and violations of legal and management procedures. To some extent, match-fixing, bribery, expressions of gratitude, and referee manipulation were also evident in both football and athletics. Football sport clubs were found to have a significantly higher vulnerability to corruption compared to athletics sport clubs.