IOC-INTERPOL partnership helps tackle competition manipulation
As part of the Olympic Agenda 2020 half-time overview, the IOC Session heard a video message from INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock on how its successful partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has yielded “positive results.”
“Competition manipulation has become an increasingly global concern, targeting a wide range of sports” says Stock. “By developing relationships of understanding, confidence and trust between sport and police, we are enabling both the prevention and investigation of competition manipulation.”
Working together with the IOC since its Memorandum of Understanding in January 2014, INTERPOL and the IOC have widened the scope of joint activities to better tackle competition manipulation in sport with a focus on prevention and training through a joint Global Integrity in Sport Capacity Building Programme.
Jointly, the two organisations have undertaken workshops in countries around the world to develop valuable skills needed to combat competition manipulation and other related issues. These workshops are targeted at National Olympic Committees (NOCs), International and National Sports Federations (IFs and NFs), law enforcement, governmental entities and betting regulators. INTERPOL has also strengthened its Match-Fixing Task Force, which currently includes police members from 78 jurisdictions.
“We thank the IOC for its commitment to this issue through the Olympic Agenda and the creation of the Olympic Movement Unit on the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions,” adds the INTERPOL Secretary General. “We need therefore to continue building on our partnership so as to protect the integrity of sport and protect clean athletes, now and in the future.”
The creation of the Olympic Movement Unit on the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions was agreed earlier this year during the second edition of the International Forum for Sports Integrity (IFSI). Led by the IOC, it is already fully operational and streamlines related initiatives of Olympic Movement stakeholders, including International Federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), athletes and their entourage more strongly.