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INTERPOL Integrity in Sport Bi-Weekly Bulletin - 16 July 2019 - 29 July 2019

Blue football kicked by purple boots

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) gave a life-time ban to the former Botswana Football Association general secretary for accepting bribes in relation to the manipulation of international matches. In addition, FIFA banned for five years a former Sierra Leone Football Association official for having accepted and received bribes in relation to the manipulation of international matches, in violation of the FIFA Code of Ethics.

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has removed KV Mechelen from the Europa League group stage after reviewing its investigation of alleged match-fixing in Belgium last year.

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) confirmed that the two Malaysian badminton players have lost their appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against their 20 and 15-year bans for match-fixing.

In Spain, the Ministry of the Presidency has approved the creation of a national commission to combat match-fixing and betting-related fraud.

In Sri Lanka, the former sports minister was indicted for fraud linked to the import of sports equipment to be provided to sports clubs. In the United States, a former Auburn assistant coach avoided prison time at his sentencing for a bribery conspiracy charge after being implicated in the college basketball recruiting scandal in the fall of 2017. He was instead sentenced to 200 hours of community service during a two-year probationary period.

Swedish Svenska Spel stopped offering betting on Division 2 Södra Svealand football league after a number of integrity monitoring bodies reported that more than 13 matches had been subject to betting-related manipulation earlier in the season.

Lastly, INTERPOL briefed the heads of the Italian national sports federations on the threats posed by organized crime groups infiltrating the sports industry during a session on match-fixing organized by the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI).

We welcome submissions on best practices, major developments, new trends and relevant articles for publication in the bulletin.

The next bi-weekly bulletin will be circulated on Monday, 12 August 2019.