Sports Integrity Initiative: FIFA, gender and corruption – Enforcing the follow-on

Governance, Sports Law

In November last year The Sports Integrity Initiative published a feature piece probing into the scarcity of women found in the top jobs of sporting administrations, including those in FIFA. Later this month the election for the top job, the President of arguably the most powerful sporting institution in the world, will take place with, currently, five contenders – all male – battling it out for the top job. Of these five, only Jérôme Champagne was willing to discuss the issues. Former Presidential candidate David Ginola was another keen to put forward his vision.

Sports Integrity Initiative: Essendon – The black, the white and the grey in between

Doping, Sports Law

Nightmare. A miscarriage of justice. Shocked. Manifestly unfair. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. A Pandora’s box.

The reaction to this morning’s news that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned the AFL tribunal’s acquittal of 34 current and former Essendon players has sent shockwaves though the sporting world. The ruling transcends a sport confined in the most part to just one country, Australia, its repercussions setting a precedent for professional sport worldwide.

Sports Integrity Initiative: Match Fixing – The indelible stain

Match-Fixing, Sports Law

To err is human; to forgive, divine.” These days Alexander Pope’s oft-quoted quip is applied to all manner of situations; its relevance is universal. Martin Luther-King applied the sentiment to the civil rights movement, as did Nelson Mandela, to an extraordinary degree. Forgiveness is central to most, if not all, religious texts too – the Bible and the Quran to name but two. However there are some acts, or crimes, where forgiveness appear that much harder, where the label is worn by the perpetrator indefinitely.

Sports Integrity Initiative: FIFA, Gender and Corruption – Everything is fine today, that is our illusion

Governance, Sports Law

Over the past few years the fight for equality between the sexes in sport has been gaining momentum. Arguments in favour of increased investment, sponsorship and media coverage in women’s sport are now being heard on multiple platforms and the efforts to implement appropriate practices are increasing. 

While the on-field fight is an important one, an area in which less fanfare is made, but in which there is arguably even greater inequality, is the one found behind the scenes, beyond the glamour and glare of the spotlight – those of the sports administrators. Traditionally these roles draw little attention anyway; a smooth operation should appear as though there isn’t an administration in place at all. However with the onset of the FIFA corruption scandal, the administration of the world’s most powerful sports governing body has tumbled headfirst into the limelight.

Sports Integrity Initiative: The destruction of samples and Martial Saugy

Doping, Sports Law

Andy Brown and Isabelle Westbury

One of the most stunning revelations from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Independent Commission report, published on 9 November, was that both the WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratories in Moscow and Lausanne had destroyed athlete samples, against the specific instructions of WADA. New information relating to the role that the Director of the Lausanne Laboratory, Martial Saugy, played at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games raises new questions about the nature and extent of his relationship with the Russian Ministry of Sport and the Moscow Laboratory.

Sports Integrity Initiative: IAAF Update – ‘We have no knowledge of this’

Doping, Sports Law

It’s been a busy few months for anti-corruption in sport, with the on-going FIFA scandal erupting in May; resignations, corruption allegations and match-fixing trials plaguing the world of cricket; and now athletics has been mired in a scandal of its own. As the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) prepares to deliver the findings of its independent Commission’s investigations into doping and corruption allegations in athletics, with much centring around Russian athletics, here’s an update on what’s happened so far.

Sports Integrity Initiative: Nigel Mawer – I’ve changed my mind, we need a match-fixing law

Match-Fixing, Sports Law

Detective Chief Superintendent, Chair of the Darts Regulation Authority (DRA), Vice Chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), Special Member of Sport Resolutions UK’s Panel of Arbitrators. Nigel Mawer’s past and current accolades are a mouthful in themselves. Now retired from the police, Mawer, a one-man crime combating champion, continues to devote his knowledge and expertise to the cause, but now channels his skills towards the sports industry. A heavyweight in the world of sports regulation, the Sports Integrity Initiative interviewed Mawer to talk about all things match-fixing, both in snooker, darts and beyond.

Sports Integrity Initiative: Convicted Pakistani cricketers eligible to return to competitive cricket

Match-Fixing, Sports Law

Yesterday the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that sanctions against Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt will expire at midnight on 1 September 2015. The ICC announced that the two cricketers, who were convicted alongside their Pakistani team-mate Mohammad Amir for their roles in spot-fixing during the England vs. Pakistan Lord’s Test in August 2010, would be eligible to return to competitive cricket after ‘fulfilling the specific conditions’ laid down by the independent Anti-Corruption Tribunal in February 2011.

Sports Integrity Initiative: AFL players’ doping bans sparks illicit drugs policy debate

Doping, Sports Law

Two players of the Australian Football League (AFL) club Collingwood, Lachlan Keeffe and Josh Thomas, have accepted two-year bans after testing positive for the banned substance clenbuterol. The bans are backdated to their provisional suspension by the AFL in March earlier this year. Collingwood released a statement saying that, in accordance with the AFL Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Agency, the two footballers had been delisted by the club and would be fined approximately $50,000 (€33,630) each, which includes having part of their 2015 player payments withheld, a figure agreed to by the players and their representatives.