SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Publishing its first report, the International Centre for Sports Security’s (ICSS) ‘Sports Integrity Hotline (SI Hotline)’ reveals that it has received more than 240 incidents of corruption, reporting allegations of match-fixing, fraud and sexual abuse.
ICSS established its hotline in 2018, providing athletes and sports stakeholders a ‘secure whistleblower platform’ for reporting sports misconducts.
In its first report, the SI hotline details football as its most impacted sport ‘affected by allegations with 87% of the reported cases’. Further sports affected by allegations include; tennis, handball and athletics.
Match-fixing (23%) is cited as the most frequently reported type of allegations, followed by money-laundering (12%) and internal corruption (10%).
The ICSS report details a diverse geographical range of where sports criminal activity is being reported including the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.
“The SI Hotline has demonstrated, in a relatively short period of time, the requirement for this service has been acknowledged by international policymakers, governments and sports institutions. The SI Hotline is seen as a vital tool to help protect those who most need it and to encourage people to come forward to preserve the integrity of sport” – the ICSS details in its statement
All SI Hotline claims are submitted to the Sport Integrity Unit (SIU), who analyse information, verifying the authenticity of the allegations.
The SIU is led by sports criminality experts Dale Sheehan and Fred Lord, former senior officers in the law enforcement agencies INTERPOL and Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The ICSS closes its statement detailing that it will move to significantly expand the IS Hotlines capabilities helping the SIU integrity frameworks, by providing ‘world’s largest independent, cross-sport anti-corruption intelligence databases’.
