ONCE upon a time, not that many years ago, boxing was the preeminent global sport. The most respected figure in world athletics was the heavyweight champion and the masses would come from near and far for a title fight.

In Australia, for the first two-thirds of the last century, boxing held a place firmly near the top of the Australian public's sporting consciousness.

In 1908, more than 20,000 people packed the old Sydney Stadium in Rushcutters Bay to watch Jack Johnson become the first African American world champion after he downed Canadian Tommy Burns.

As the time for the fight approached, "all roads were blocked" and "at every point of vantage within vicinity men were posted and the crowds waiting outside the stadium probably exceeded the vast array of spectators within" reported The Sunday Times.

Les Darcy has long been part of Australian sporting folklore, his story as well known as that of Phar Lap or The Don, with an estimated half a million people paying respects to his body upon his death.

Jimmy Carruthers and Dave Sands were legends of their time. Johnny Famechon was beloved. Lionel Rose a hero to a nation. Even Jeff Fenech, the Marrickville Mauler, kept boxing on the back pages well into the 1980s.

But by then the stink of corruption had well and truly permeated the sport.

Boxing had fractured, organised crime had got its teeth into the sport, dodgy promoters became the face of the game and soon the one-time top sport was marginalised, shunted to the fringes, a niche sport viewed by the mainstream as having little or no legitimacy.

In less than two decades, the seedy underbelly of betting corruption had totally debased boxing.

Cricket is facing a similar crisis. Corruption has taken hold and the game's rapidly declining popularity can be seen each summer as the crowds get smaller, the television ratings decrease and the water cooler talk is increasingly focused on other sports such as soccer, basketball and American football.

All of this cannot be solely attributed to the decreasing legitimacy of the game brought about by betting-related corruption.

Overexposure, a glut of pointless cricket without context, frustration with selection policy, the dramatic fall from grace of 50-over cricket and the fading fortunes of the Australian national team have all played a part in the sharp decline of cricket in this country.

But there is no doubt the shroud of distrust that envelops the game, brought on by a string of betting-related frauds, is the main reason the game is suffering a dramatic fall in popularity.

From the match-fixing scandals that finished Saleem Malik, Mohammed Azharuddin and Hansie Cronje in the 1990s through to the recent jailing of three Pakistani cricketers for spot fixing, cricket has been stuck in the mire of sordid betting activities that eat at the heart of the game.

There is no quicker way to lose a fan base than to have the integrity of the outcome brought into question.

The chief of staff to US President Richard Nixon, H.R. Haldeman, once famously said that "you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube" when the White House became embroiled in the Watergate scandal. The same holds true with betting corruption. Once it is out, it is very hard to control and there is almost nothing a sport can do to re-establish its good grace with the sporting public.

Cricket may be ready to take a hard line on fraudulent betting practices now, but the game was too slow off the mark, too reactionary and too much in denial about the depth and breadth of corruption in the game. The result: a sport constantly undermined by scandal in which few totally believe in the outcome of matches.

The AFL has been much more aggressive and far more proactive in ensuring Australian football is not undermined by betting corruption, to the point where the League has been accused of being heavy-handed in some punishments for breaches of its betting policy.

Such criticism pays no heed to the damage betting corruption can cause.

To be critical of the AFL for fighting so vigorously against the most insidious threat in world sport, particularly through the prism of the dramatic falls of boxing and cricket in the public consciousness, is to fail to grasp the true risk betting corruption poses.

The League realises it needs to snuff out any whiff of fraud, even if it is only a perceived threat and even if the wrong is generally viewed as relatively harmless. The toothpaste must stay in the tube.

And it has.

In 2007, Adelaide's Simon Goodwin was fined $40,000 ($20,000 suspended) for wagering $16,000 over four bets. That same year Melbourne's Daniel Ward was fined $10,000 ($5000 suspended) for placing 18 bets on football including two on Melbourne to win. David Hale was hit with a suspended $5000 fine for having four bets totalling $100. Kieran Jack was reprimanded for two wagers tallying $10.

In 2009, Melbourne's Addam Maric was fined $5000 after placing a $100 bet for a friend on a game not involving the Demons.

In 2010, then-Port Adelaide assistant Matthew Primus was suspended for two matches for betting $20 on a 2009 pre-season final, while a goal umpire, two interchange stewards and a timekeeper were all stood down for having bets totalling between $5 and $60. The Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne both received fines (North's was suspended) for board members betting on AFL matches.

This year, Collingwood defender Heath Shaw received a 14-game ban (six suspended) and a $20,000 fine for placing a $10 bet on teammate Nick Maxwell to kick the first goal of a match at $101 while Maxwell was fined $10,000 ($5,000 suspended) when family members wagered on the same option.

Essendon assistant Dean Wallis was banned for 14 matches and fined $7500 for placing three bets totalling $400, including betting on a Bombers game and then not cooperating throughout the investigation.

Over the last decade, the AFL has taken an increasingly tough approach to betting related offences.

They have provided widespread education, stiffened the rules, increased detection measures and better resourced investigators to prevent anyone involved in the game from betting on football or leaking information for betting related purposes.

Punishments have been increasingly strong, made to reflect the seriousness of the breach and to act as a deterrent to others.

Three years ago, the League appointed Brett Clothier to the position of integrity services manager.

The AFL has lobbied the federal government to make gambling-related cheating in sport a crime.

The latest step is to develop in-house monitoring so that the AFL can directly observe betting on all football matches, allowing for a greater real-time response to any dubious activity.

Presently, the League has to wait for bookmakers to report any suspicious activity.

Monitoring betting in-house would have a two-pronged benefit for the game: it would allow the AFL to react far quicker to any questionable betting activity and it would act as a greater deterrent to those involved in the game who may think they can slip under the radar.

Of all sports in Australia, the AFL has taken the most sensible approach. There is no high and mighty disdain for bookmakers. There is no simple lip service. The League has created an environment where players know not to be involved in betting on football and that if they are, they will be severely punished.

Vigilance is the key when it comes to betting-related corruption because once the stink of illegitimacy gets on a sport, it is near impossible to shake. 

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs