Recently the Irish developed an invested interest in the area of cheating. For those who live under a rock, yet still have internet access but only use it to check this article, Ireland were prematurely denied a place in the 2011 World Cup in South Africa after Henry controlled the ball using his hand before setting up the game winning goal. Outrage ensued and it has led to the Government discussing the issue in the Dáil and in Brussels, every talk show has been inundated with people who want their opinions heard and some are so upset that they have boycotted Gillette products (and were possibly going to extend that boycott to all Proctor & Gamble products). Just goes to show that Football is not a matter of life and death; it is much more important than that. Should the game be replayed? No; these things happen in sport and are all part and parcel of the game. It does demonstrate a need for video technology to be introduced but, depending on how it is utilised, it could still be up to the referee to double check...which doesn't always happen. If anything, this goal illustrates this need far more and yet, over twenty years later, nothing has changed.

eSports should probably be touched upon given that this is an eSports site. eSports does have the benefit of video replays and analysis when resolving disputes and, in most cases, these are used effectively. Sometimes it can take too long to resolve disputes. For example, in the World Cyber Games 2009 finals match between k23 and wNv, there was an incident which was questioned. The tournament administrators reviewed this particular incident for an hour before determining that no exploit was used. As a result, there would be no punishment. However, the match was further delayed as k23 had left the stage, only to return long after they were declared innocent. In most situations, video analysis works more effectively and efficiently. Does this mean that eSports is more advanced in certain areas than some mainstream sports? Unfortunately not...

A problem within eSports is that there is no governing body. The line in the sand is usually drawn by tournament organisers rather than by an "overlord" of sorts. The tried-and-tested double-elimination bracket was coined by the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) and maps pools are selected by major tournaments and then adopted in smaller or community run events. Even the Irish fighting game scene looks to EVO for rulesets and resolutions for potential disputes. Games, by their nature, are open to exploitation. Playing games as children, everyone tries to pattern the AI or find a tactic that works against AI opposition and then use it in order to win. Some of these exploits and glitches, such as strafe jumping or bunny hopping, have become acceptable while others have not. FIFA 09 required a clampdown on the use of long-balls and shooting from kickoff as these were a glitch too far. Again, it was up to tournament organisers to outlaw these tactics, and determine what constituted an overuse of the longball, rather than accepting a standardised ruleset from a higher power.

There are bigger issues than in-game glitches, a subject that has been covered previously. One such issue is that of outright cheating. Without a governing body, there is little to stop cheaters from getting back in the game. Cheaters are banned from tournaments in which they are caught cheating during. While they may be watched more closely when participating in other tournaments, they are still able to compete. Thanks to the anonymity of the internet, exposed cheaters can simply take on a new persona and continue as they were. This has been highlighted recently by the renewed activity of a Quake player called Yuka. Yuka took on the identity of a famous Quake 2 player, Shub_Nigga, and had managed to join Russian team 'pstarZ'. The community were on hand to tackle this incident as the alias was reported. Members of the community had become suspicious as this 'shub' player utilised a different play style and was unable to speak his "native" language. This Quake Live account was then banned but only after the guilty player had participated in the ESL Major Series Team Deathmatch fixture against LowLandLions. Fortunately, eSports has not reached a stage where it is profitable to cheat in online events. At the moment, players can be an online hero, but nothing more. It is a LAN performance that earns respect, reputation, and most importantly, prize money. This is starting to change with online tournaments offering more in terms of prizes, both cash and hardware. Within Quake Live alone, players can potentially earn $800 a month by winning the weekly G-Data and ZOTAC cups. This example alone illustrates that something to deter online cheaters needs to be implemented and implemented soon.

The subject of cheating even goes beyond what has been discussed previously. There is nothing to stop or deter organisations and tournament organisers from cheating. Over the last number of months, numerous cases of non-payment, either of wages or prizes, have been exposed. This is cheating from an organisations point of view. If one was to look at the rules of business, paying your creditors is a must. Money that you owe, whether it's to players, teams, suppliers or utilities, must be paid. Traditional or bricks-and-mortar businesses would go under in a heartbeat but eSports organisations have been allowed to live on. Many did not even suffer a dent in reputation for a long time. It is only recently that people have begun speaking out against injustices such as these. Even at that, these disputes have only been raised through media exposure and this can only do so much. However, there is nothing beyond this exposure to protect individuals. In some cases, an organisation that has been exposed will try to rectify the wrong doing but in many cases, the news story ages and drops down the pecking order until it simply becomes a footnote in the mind and a bitter taste in the mouth. Only recently, G7 Teams began taking steps to track down payments that were owed to players and teams from tournament organisers. Disputes to the value of over $350,000 were lodged and this may just be a drop in the ocean. Three organisations (the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) and ClanBase) were recorded as owing almost $275,000 between them. This in itself is unacceptable but there was never any organisation to represent players interests and the tournaments held the power. This needs to change. A governing body must be a neutral party at the same time. While G7 teams have acted in the interests of players or teams recently, they have an invested interest in that they field professional competitors. These teams must be watched like all others to ensure that they do not exploit players and teams and, should they host tournaments, pay out prizes to winners in a timely manner.
 
Cheating, at all levels, must be stopped. Of course, if a governing body is formed, it may be a case of "who watches the Watchmen?". But something is needed...sooner rather than later. 

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