Top 10 fixing scandals

Chris Rattue rediscovers the exploits of some of the sporting world's most infamous rascals

1 Shoeless Joe Jackson

The most famous fix in sport, featuring a bloke whose reputation has been hard to repair. The poorly educated Jackson was entangled among the Chicago White Sox (above) players accused of throwing baseball's World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in 1919. The extent of his role is confused, but he certainly wasn't a ringleader in this scandal, involving gangsters and gamblers, and may have tried to prevent it, in fact. Unfortunately, the conflicting testimony includes his own. A court cleared the players but the game's commissioner still banned them. Jackson - a true great - never played in the big time again. On a positive note Jackson's character does figure in a really good Kevin Costner film (Field of Dreams), which is a very lucky - if posthumous - break.

2 Hansie Cronje

What a shock, to discover that the tough cricketer who led South African out of the international wilderness was on the take. Captain Cronje wasn't even very good at fixing games - his co-conspirators sometimes ignored the dodgy game plan cooked up by Indian betting crooks. Phone intercepts helped nail this fraudster, although his reputation survived remarkably well in South Africa, considering the betrayal. He was banned for life in 2000, but this turned into a short sentence when Cronje died in a plane crash two years later.

3 Fine Cotton

Typical. Humans do the dirty work and some poor horse gets its reputation dragged through the mud. Fine Cotton, a fairly useless racehorse, was completely innocent, of course, but the name will stand forever as a symbol of bumbling skulduggery after this Aussie scandal from the 1980s. When the initial ring-in for Fine Cotton suffered an injury, the crooks involved had to quickly find another horse for a race at Eagle Farm in Queensland. Bold Personality didn't even look like Fine Cotton and the comical attempt at a makeover included applying paint to the horse's legs. Unfortunately for the schemers, both the legs and the paint ran a hell of a lot faster than Fine Cotton, meaning the subterfuge was lost on the crowd. The villains were unmasked in a story that even Hollywood would have trouble making up.

4 Sonny Liston

Either the menacing Liston took a dive or Muhammad Ali delivered the most ferocious pat on the head in history to end their second heavyweight title fight in 1965. The theories included one that Liston took a tumble to pay off debts to mobsters. Crazier still, Liston - with fears real or imagined about people out to get him - allegedly claimed he rolled over for free.

5 Bruce Grobbelaar

Quite capable of throwing a match without any inducements, Grobbelaar's eccentric goalkeeping took on a sinister meaning after a newspaper sting in 1994. The Liverpool goalkeeper was videotaped talking match-fixing. He wriggled out of any conviction, claiming he had taken it upon himself to become a snoop against crooked betting syndicates. Capable of making amazing saves, the Zimbabwean did so with the Liverpool fans who still revere him.

6 Tim Donaghy

Donaghy was an NBA basketball referee who did time a couple of years ago after betting on games he was controlling. What a guy. Having been caught, he did all the usual things - revealing his gambling addiction, making wild accusations and writing a book. Yawn.

7 Ekaterina Bychkova

Last year, Russky tennis player Ekaterina Bychkova was fined and suspended for failing to report an approach in which she was asked to throw matches. Just who might gain by paying the world number 123 in women's tennis to lose is hard to figure out.

8 Chiyohakuho

What hasn't this bloke been involved with? That's the question many of us have been forced to ask over recent days. All that youthful promise ... wasted. The ancient and honourable Japanese sport of sumo has been rocked to the core over match fixing. Chiyohakuho's rap sheet includes skipping a drug test, illegally betting on baseball, and now admitting to throwing contests. This is enough to make any dedicated sumo fan cry like a baby ... instead of just dressing like one.

9 John Higgins

First, a legal point. The triple world snooker champion from Scotland was cleared on a charge of match fixing following yet another newspaper sting. Cleared, do you hear? Those pesky reporters - always causing trouble. Higgins was, however, found guilty by a tribunal of "appearing" to breach betting rules and failing to report an approach in a Ukraine hotel room by people he thought were the Russian mafia. Higgins and his manager were offered extraordinary amounts to throw frames but never for a moment did they have any intention of taking part. No sireee. Higgins said his response appeared suspicious because he feared the mafia types. Well, thank goodness that was all cleared up.

10 Tony Kay, David Layne, Peter Swan

The Sheffield Wednesday players bet £50 at 2-1 against their own team in late 1962 and Wednesday duly lost to Ipswich Town - a fix that was part of a wider player betting scandal. The three - Swan and Kay were English internationals - were jailed and banned. Players weren't the only ones at it. The dodgiest soccer manager of these times was the Leeds United overlord Don Revie, known as Don Readies for his efforts to bribe opposing teams. The Leeds hard man Norman Hunter, while defending Revie, said: "He may have bent the rules a bit and I noticed certain things myself." Hunter was a ruthless defender, but not in this case.