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The NFL preseason has already started and already has been dogged by controversy. With the NBA betting scandal also in the news it brings a bad light to American sports in general.

I read an article in the Washington Post called ‘When the Fix Is In, You Can’t Believe It‘. It made a few good points about mistrust in sports today. From baseball, to cycling to wrestling, it seems the whole sports world has gone mad.

Sports betting in the US - whether in its legal form in Las Vegas and Atlantic City or illegally elsewhere (including, since 2006, the Internet) - is a multibillion dollar business.

Some sports, like boxing, have long been tainted by ties with gambling and organised crime. But since 1919, the “big three” have been clean. Or have they? Every sign is that, as it has struggled to recapture the glories (and the TV ratings) of the Jordan era, basketball has been looking in the wrong direction. Its focus has been on improving the on- and off-court conduct of its players. The NBA might have been better running a rule on the people who run its games.

Donaghy, according to David Stern, the NBA’s commissioner, is a one-off, “an isolated case”. But the normally sublimely self-confident Stern cut a chastened and sombre figure at a press conference this week. It was, he confessed “the most serious situation and the worst situation” in his 23 years in charge of the league. “I can’t believe this is happening to us.” No charges have yet been filed. But matters may get worse when the former referee turns himself in to the federal authorities, probably early next week, and if, as seems likely, he agrees to cooperate with FBI investigators.

As for motive, one can only speculate. Envy perhaps? Though Donaghy was paid $260,000 (£127,000) last year, that sum is barely a week’s wages for some of the petulant stars he manages on court. Or was he simply a compulsive gambler - who had in fact been seen placing bets at an Atlantic City casino back in 2005, in violation of NBA rules?

The real question, though, is not so much whether he gambled. Did he actually fix games, for the benefit of himself or gambling syndicates? A referee certainly has plenty of scope to do so. The most common basketball bet is for or against a “line” set by bookmakers for a game - that one team will win by a certain number of points. “Bulls -5″, for instance, means that the Chicago Bulls (Jordan’s old team) are favoured by five points. Bet on the Bulls and they have to win by more than that for you to win as well. If a flood of bets comes in on one side, the line will be adjusted accordingly.

Another frequent wager is an “over-under” bet; that the combined points total for a quarter, a half, or a whole game will be above or below a predetermined figure. Again, a tide of bets either over or under will cause oddsmakers to shift that figure.

A referee can easily manipulate scores by calling dubious fouls, forcing a team to bench its best players, and allowing the other team extra free-throw scoring opportunities. At least a dozen Donaghy games are under scrutiny, and some possible anomalies have already been noted. Over the past two seasons, he awarded more free throws than any other NBA referee.

According to the sports betting website Pregame.com, the first 15 games of the 2006-2007 season refereed by Donaghy that drew enough bets to move the line 1.5 points or more “were perfect against Las Vegas - meaning the big-money gamblers won 15 times out of 15 on his games”. Although there is no suggestion of wrongdoing, the odds against that happening, claims Pregame.com, are 32,768-1.

For others however, the evidence is less conclusive. Had the discrepancies been that glaring and that frequent, someone would surely have raised a red flag. After all, the NBA monitors every game minutely to make sure fouls have been called correctly. Ultimately, without details only Donaghy and/or any accomplices can provide, nothing is provable in law.

But in terms of faith dented, suspicions aroused and reputations unjustly tarred, Stern is right to talk of “a betrayal of the most sacred trust in professional sports.” After Donaghy, basketball fans will wonder darkly about every referee and every questionable foul call. As for the players, Shaquille O’Neal - center for the Miami Heat and one of the most dominant players of his era - summed up their feelings to the Washington Post last weekend. “How many games did he throw that I played in?” Even if Donaghy is a single rotten apple, and no game-fixing is proved, the damage to basketball will not be quickly undone.

But Stern is not the only major league sports boss who must do some soul-searching. As he wonders whether and how enthusiastically to attend the games at which Bonds might equal and break Aaron’s record (he is two behind on 753 at the time of writing), the baseball commissioner Bud Selig should ask himself how his sport for so long turned a blind eye to steroids. Bond’s late-career power surge was only the culmination of the freakish home run explosion of the late 1990s, which won back fans disgusted by the players’ strike of 1994-1995. The suspicions were glaring. But until Balco left it no choice, baseball’s high command did nothing.

And what of Roger Goodell at the NFL? There had been talk for years that some players were linked to dogfighting, a felony in 48 of the 50 states. How come this was missed amid the disciplinary clampdown on errant NFL players that has already seen one suspended for the entire 2007 season?

But that is just one question unanswered in this amazing summer of sporting scandal.