International Olympic Committee to boost efforts to stamp out Olympic cheating

In an effort to stamp out cheating and illegal betting activity at future Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has established a new whistle-blower hotline for anyone to report suspicious activities related to sporting competition.

IOC President Thomas Bach has this week also announced that an additional US$20 million is to be added to the IOC’s fund for the protection of the clean athletes, with half of the money going into better research in the fight against doping.

The new Integrity and Compliance Hotline was launched on Monday (13th April) during the IOC’s International Forum for Sports Integrity (IFSI), which met for the first time in Lausanne.

The web-based hotline is open to athletes, coaches, referees and the public, and guarantees 100 per cent anonymity. Anyone can report suspicious approaches or activities related to competition manipulation and/or infringements of the IOC Code of Ethics or other matters – including financial misconduct or other legal, regulatory and ethical breaches – over which the IOC has jurisdiction.

At Monday’s meeting the IFSI, a successor to the Founding Working Group on the Fight Against Irregular and Illegal Betting in Sport, prepared a roadmap for future action aimed at strengthening and coordinating all activities to protect clean athletes from match-fixing, manipulation of competitions and related corruption.

The Forum called on European and non-European governments to sign the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, which particularly ensures that domestic laws enable criminal investigations and sanctioning of the manipulation of sports competitions when it involves either coercive, corrupt or fraudulent practices.

The meeting included representatives from world governments, the Council of Europe, the European Union, Interpol, Europol, United Nations agencies, sports betting operators, Olympic Movement stakeholders and others.

In announcing the US$20 million fund for clean athlete protection, Bach said the IOC had asked the governments who are sharing responsibility in WADA to match the US$10 million. Bach explained “to date we have commitments of US$5.9 million from different governments (and) we hope that these commitments will turn into payments by the deadline of the end of March next year.

“The IOC will make this US$10 million available regardless of the attitude of the governments (and) will pay its full contribution for this fund because we need to have a look into anti-doping testing systems.”

Bach said the other U$S10 million was being put towards the fight against irregular betting and related corruption, and some of this money had already been allocated to a prevention programme in association with Interpol.

During the meeting it was also agreed that the role of ‘sports integrity officers’ should be defined and strengthened within sports organisations at all levels, including National Olympic Committees, International Federations and National Federations.

18th May 2014 - ORGANISED CRIME ESTIMATED TO LAUNDER OVER US$140 BILLION ANNUALLY THROUGH SPORT BETTING

8th October 2013 - NEW ZEALAND OLYMPIC COMMITTEE TO CHALLENGE CHEATING IN SPORT

20th May 2013 - AUSTRALIAN SPORT DOPING CHANGES INFLUENCING WADA

18th February 2013 - IOC CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF WADA

7th February 2013 - DRUGS AND CRIME REPORT ROCKS AUSTRALIAN SPORT

19th January 2013 - 'SERIAL CHEAT' ARMSTRONG’S DOPING ADMISSIONS QUESTIONED BY WADA PRESIDENT FAHEY 

18th December 2012 - INTERNATIONAL SPORT FEDERATIONS GENERATE $2 BILLION IN SPONSORSHIP 

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