INTERPOL Integrity in Sport Bi-Weekly Bulletin - 22 January 2019 - 4 February 2019

In Bulgaria, prosecutors have charged two second division players with match-fixing as part of an investigation into alleged corruption in football. In Belgium, authorities are seeking access to documents by a Portuguese hacker who is under arrest in Hungary and linked to Football Leaks, as part of an ongoing corruption, money laundering and match-fixing investigation in football.

In Australia, the Victoria Police Sporting Unit has arrested the country’s most successful horse racing trainer in an investigation into potential offences against the Rules of Racing. In Kenya, a club owner accused an Ugandan football coach and players of conspiring to lose games they had bet on. Police opened an investigation into the matter. In Thailand, the Metropolitan Police Bureau has arrested a famous Muay Thai Boxer under a court warrant on a match-fixing charge.

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has banned a former international referee for life after being found guilty of taking bribes as part of larger match-fixing schemes. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has welcomed the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to sanction 12 Russian athletes in connection with the findings of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

In the United States, NASCAR’s new Sports Betting Policy prohibits team owners, drivers, crew members and series officials from gambling on NASCAR, and lists penalties including indefinite suspension and hefty fines. In addition, United States lawmakers introduced the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act with rare bi-partisan support to criminalize international doping fraud conspiracies. The proposed law aims to ensure that fraud against American competitors would not go unpunished, with penalties up to a $1 million fine and 10 years in prison.

In the fight against illegal betting, the Turkish police launched an operation to detain close to 400 individuals over links to an illegal online sports betting organization, and in an interesting interview, an illegal bookmaker in the US explains how he managed to build and maintain a successful sports betting operation.

In terms of legislation, Australia is the first non-European country to have signed the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (so-called “Macolin Convention”, CETS No. 215), making the convention truly international. Following the review of Australian Sports Integrity Arrangements, new governance measures to protect the integrity of sports are now being announced as well.

In terms of governance, we report an update on discussions between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) to keep boxing on the Olympic Agenda, following alleged match-fixing during Rio 2016 and severe governance issue in the boxing federation.

In the field of doping, a famous Kenyan Marathon champion has been banned for two years after testing positive to banned performance enhancing substances.

Finally, we look back at a recent INTERPOL-IOC Integrity In Sport National Workshop in Qatar, and an initiative by the Global Lotteries Monitoring System on cooperation between sports, lotteries, law enforcement and other stakeholders.

We welcome submissions on best practices, major developments, new trends and relevant articles for publication in the bulletin. We also welcome hard copies of publications that your Organization is producing in the field of sports corruption at the below address.

The next bi-weekly bulletin will be circulated on Monday, 18 February 2019.

Tuesday, 05 February 2019