“What we’re doing will not help at all. These guys have to go to jail.”
These were the strong words of International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach as he spoke at the fourth International Forum for Sports Integrity, hosted at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Bach was referring to the current legal sanctions regarding criminal activity in sport, and passionately urged governments and world leaders to get tougher and increase the severity of punishment regarding corruption in sports.
“As sports organizations we don’t have the tools for deterrent sanctions. Sending someone home from an event and saying they are not welcome for two years is not a deterrent to a criminal. We urge governments to make more efforts to harmonize their legislation and then to issue deterrent sanctions,” Bach said. “Laws from governments and official authorities around the globe are needed so criminals have no place to feel safe. These guys have to go to jail.”
Bach did praise the work and cooperation being done between the IOC and Interpol, but stressed the problem of crime and corruption stretches beyond their reach.
Ilana de Wild, Director of Organized and Emerging Crime at Interpol, agrees with Bach.
“No organization can tackle the problem of match fixing alone. Federations must work in tandem with law enforcement agencies. It’s the only way to keep criminals out of sport,” she said. “It is striking there are still relatively few criminal investigations in the field of sports corruption.”
Match fixing has long been an issue in many sports and while it’s common for a person or people involved in the scandal to be banned from the sport, often for life, the issue of prison sentences is sporadic and inconsistent at best.
In 2013, the IOC and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published a report into match fixing and illegal betting and found links to other criminal activities such as corruption, organized crime and money laundering. The report further stated, “The current lack of uniformity in criminalization measures and legislative approaches calls for more streamlined action to develop standing-setting model instruments and facilitate convergence in criminal justice responses.”
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
