INTERPOL Integrity in Sport Bi-Weekly Bulletin - 30 July 2019 - 12 August 2019

The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) suspended an Egyptian player for five years and fined him $15,000 for match-fixing and other associated corruption offences. On condition that no further breaches of anti-corruption rules are committed, the player will serve a three year suspension and pay a $2,000 fine. The TIU has also suspended a Russian tennis player for six months and fined her $1,000 after failing to report a corruption approach and knowledge of corrupt activity.

Three Kyrgyz and one Tajik football players have been given life bans for match-fixing during the Asian Football Cup tournaments in 2017 and 2018. The four Central Asian players have been found guilty of being involved in a conspiracy to manipulate matches involving their clubs. The Vietnam Football Federation banned a coach for two years for attempting to fix a match in the National Beach Football Championship 2019.

The Zimbabwe cricket board has been reinstated by a government body, however, the country remains suspended by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The ICC suspended Zimbabwe in July over a failure to keep the sport free from government interference.

A 20-year-old Australian swimmer tested positive to a banned substance, Ligandrol, and faces a four-year ban from competition.

Illegal sports betting is still relevant in the United States, with a family in Texas running an unlawful gambling racket for thirty years. According to federal authorities, the business is one of the most significant illegal sports gambling and money laundering operations in the country. The prosecutor claims the family operation may have processed as much as 33 million dollars in six years between 2010 and 2016.

The INTERPOL Match-Fixing Task Force contributed to the monitoring of the competition during the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 by the FIFA Women’s World Cup Integrity Task Force and supported any integrity related concern. No suspicion of match manipulation was detected during this process in which the French National Platform acted as main point of contact with FIFA and other key stakeholders – including the Council of Europe’s Group of Copenhagen, Sportradar, the Global Lottery Monitoring System to monitor any suspicious activity potentially affecting the integrity of the games.

Athletes participating in the 2019 Pan-American Games have shown a keen interest in the International Olympic Committee’s Believe in Sport campaign, aimed at protecting them and preventing competition manipulation.

The Badminton World Federation Integrity Unit will conduct random interviews with players and coaches in an effort to safeguard the sport from all forms of match manipulation and to keep it free of doping.

Lastly, the DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga has extended its partnership with Sportradar Integrity Services to protect against match-fixing in connection with sports betting. The German Football Association (DFB) has appointed Genius Sports to develop and launch a new integrity programme to help prevent match-fixing and betting-related corruption.

The next bi-weekly bulletin will be circulated on Monday, 26 August 2019.

Monday, 12 August 2019