With corruption risks in sport continuing to rise, affecting both competitions and organisations, the fifth International Forum for sports integrity in Lausanne, Switzerland, addressed current and emerging challenges to sports integrity.
Opened by Kirsty Coventry, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the forum acknowledged the quality of governance of the Olympic movement; recognised that the standards of sports integrity have expanded and evolved in response to emerging challenges and new opportunities; reiterated that sport can be an enabler of sustainable development, and also contribute to fostering justice and peace worldwide; and paved the way towards strengthening cross-sector cooperation among sports bodies, governments, and law enforcement authorities.
Regarding preventing competition manipulation, the Olympic Movement called upon states to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the manipulation of sports competitions and to implement its provisions, and to effectively implement relevant provisions of the UN Convention against corruption and convention against transnational organised crime, to tackle competition manipulation.
Council of Europe Deputy Secretary General Bjørn Berge took part in a panel discussion on enhancing integrity in sports organisations and how intergovernmental organisations – such as the Council of Europe, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and others – can help governments take relevant and concrete initiatives in promoting integrity in sports.
Deputy Secretary General Berge gave a presentation of the important work of the Council of Europe in sports, highlighting the three key conventions on respectively antidoping; combating spectator violence; and manipulation of sports competitions.
He also highlighted the important work of IOC in these efforts.
He also stressed the importance of a collective effort to tackle corruption and protect integrity in sport at large, highlighting the fundamental role of the International Partnership Against Corruption in Sport (IPACS).
The panel included also Ingemar de Vos, IOC member; Paquerette Girard Zappelli, Secretary to the IOC Ethics Commission; Sandra Felix, IPACS Chair and Director of the Federal Office of Sport in Switzerland; and Birgitte Strobel-Shaw, Chief of the Corruption and Economic Crime Branch at UNODC.
A Universal Declaration on sports integrity was adopted at the meeting.
The Council of Europe and sport
Deputy Secretary General Bjørn Berge
The International Olympic Committee
