List of sporting scandals


This is a list of major sports scandals.

American football scandals

Association football scandals

Baseball scandals

Basketball scandals

Boxing scandals

College sporting scandals

Cricket scandals

Doping scandals

Skating scandals

Figure skating scandals

Short track speed skating scandals

Gliding scandals

  • During the 2020 Women's World Gliding Championships at Lake Keepit, Australia, the home team captain Terry Cubley was charged with unsporting behaviour for hacking the official tracking system to bypass the mandatory 15 minute delay and forward real time competitors' positions to his team, granting a tactical advantage. An investigation revealed that Matt Gage had been closely involved with the developers of the tracking system, and was aware of an undocumented back door that allowed the team captain to bypass the 15 minute delay. This real-time information was relayed by the team captain over the radio to the Australian pilots. This was the first time in the sport's history that an entire team had been penalised for unsporting behaviour, with the Competition Director applying a penalty of 25 points per pilot per day. Controversially the pilots involved were spared disqualification only receiving a relatively trivial points reduction. Following a subsequent GFA investigation two of the Australian Team admitted to cheating and the GFA made a formal apology to the FAI and the wider gliding community. Terry Cubley was removed from his role as Vice President of the IGC, but chose to remain as Executive Officer of the GFA. The pilots involved chose to appeal against this decision, resulting in the longest and most comprehensive investigation in the FAIs history. The final judgement described the actions of the pilots as ‘reprehensible’, increased the penalty to disqualification and removed their flights from the competition record. The Appeal Tribunal also recommended the FAI to take further disciplinary action against those involved. Following the Tribunals verdict Lisa Turner issued a press release re-iterating their denial of cheating, accused the tribunal of bias against the Australian team and announced a further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS.

Golf scandals

  • Jane Blalock cheating controversy – one of the LPGA Tour's top players, Jane Blalock, was accused of illegally marking her golf ball on the green. She was suspended and fined by the tour, but Blalock in turn filed suit and won an injunction that allowed her to continue playing. Blalock eventually won her lawsuit and she and the LPGA reached an out-of-court settlement.
  • Vijay Singh, a former number one golfer in the world, was suspended from the PGA Tour for using deer antler spray, which violated the PGA Tour Anti-Doping Policy. Likewise in 1985, Vijay Singh was caught erasing his score on a hole and replacing it with a lower score after the scorecard had been signed. Once the rules officials confirmed the allegations, Singh was banned from the Asian Tour. To this day, Singh has not acknowledged that he cheated.

Gymnastics scandals

Horse racing scandals

  • Show jumping horse killings – from 1975 to 1995, wealthy owners and trainers of show jumping horses conspired to electrocute and otherwise kill over-valued as well as under-performing animals in a 20-year-long scheme to defraud insurance companies. Crimes also committed during this equestrian sports scandal include extortion, mail fraud, animal cruelty and the murder of at least one human being.
  • Fine Cotton/Bold Personality ring-in – a 1984 betting scam in which the conspirators, which included some elite figures in Australian Thoroughbred racing, substituted the far more talented Bold Personality for Fine Cotton in a low-class race. The scheme was discovered immediately after the race and the investigation led to lifetime bans for six individuals and bans of more than a decade for at least two more.
  • 2020 Horse racing doping scam – the scam was revealed in March 2020, when the FBI cracked down several top names in American horse racing. Initially, 27 people were charged with doping, which later increased to 29 people.

Ice hockey scandals

Match-fixing scandals

Motorsport and racing scandals

Olympic Games scandals

Paralympic Games

  • Cheating at the Paralympic Games – in the 2000 Summer Paralympics, athletes from Spain competed and won the gold medal in the Basketball ID event despite the majority of players not having an intellectual disability. The fallout from this scandal saw all events for athletes with intellectual disabilities removed from the next two Summer Paralympics.

Rugby league scandals

Rugby union scandals

Sumo wrestling scandals

Tennis scandals

Volleyball scandals