It’s not a great time to be a fan of the Pakistani cricket team.

In March 2009, gunmen attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan team during its tour of Pakistan. Six policemen and a driver died, while seven players and an assistant coach were injured. In response to the attack and the security fears it raised, other nations canceled tours to Pakistan and the International Cricket Council (ICC) stripped the country of its hosting privileges for the 2011 World Cup. Adding insult to injury, its great rival India will now jointly host the event with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

This summer, the Pakistani team was given a home in England, allowing it to continue playing “home” international fixtures. After several games against local sides and a couple of good results against Australia, it then went on to play an ill-fated series of matches against England.

Allegations of match-fixing emerged at the end of August, and as the police began to investigate, three players were suspended and sent home. Then, just as it looked like Pakistan was finally managing to put this behind it, last Friday, with a good win over England, the whole thing resurfaced. The very next day, evidence emerged of spot-fixing in that same game, calling into question whether or not the two remaining matches could even be played.

Spot-fixing is a less extreme form of match-fixing. Players might be made to bowl a certain number or pattern of wides–when the ball is thrown too far from the stumps–or told to score fewer than a certain number of runs when batting. The whole point is that some shadowy character behind the scenes bribes a player to do this and then makes large sums of money by betting on these pre-determined outcomes.

Now, bending the rules is so much a part of all sports that someone coined the term “gamesmanship” to make it seem a little less dishonest. But there are two types of cheating that should anger even the most blasé fan: doping and match-fixing.

Both of these have repeatedly conspired to shake the very foundations of major sports and teams.

Every year or so, one Olympic champion or another has his or her gold medals stripped after taking illegal substances, and in one particularly strong example, the 2007 Tour de France was brought to its knees as rider after rider failed blood tests. Even as the drug-testing agencies become more adept at catching cheats, those producing or administering the substances still manage to remain one step ahead with new chemicals and new ways to fool the tests.

Evidence of serious match-fixing brought serious consequences for four of the major clubs in Italian Serie A in 2006, with league winner Juventus stripped of its previous two titles and relegated to Serie B. At the Singapore Grand Prix in 2008, the Renault team took the idea to extremes by ordering one of its drivers to crash, and in so doing, put its other driver in a position to win the race. On a close-walled street circuit, this could have led to serious injury or even death.

Both doping and match-fixing devalue sport, robbing spectators and participants of the chance to watch and play an honest contest. Renault even proved that both can be physically dangerous, making match-fixing in that case seem even riskier than injecting unknown substances into one’s veins. As a fan, though, I have to say that doping is the lesser of the two evils.

While I definitely don’t condone it, I can understand why, in the highly competitive world of professional sports, some might choose to take illegal substances. This is a world where the difference between gold and forgettable can be just a few tenths of a second. Athletes risk a lot, both their careers and their health, but at the end of the day, they are still doing what comes naturally: trying to win.

Though in some cases of match-fixing there is still someone cheating to win, there is always someone doing the opposite: trying to lose or, at best, to play at a certain level less than his or her ability. That is something that goes against every axiom of sporting. No child grows up dreaming of the day they can walk out onto the field and pretend to play just enough to fool the watching crowds into believing they saw a real game.

That is simply not sport. It deserves to be on a stage or a movie screen, where everyone knows the participants are acting out a script.

In the very worst way, match-fixers let down everyone. For the sake of a few extra pennies, they sell out their teams, their fans and those closest of all to them: their teammates.