By United Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL)

The exponential growth of the sports business market, extensive media coverage and the global growth of real-time online betting have created an environment in which many individuals and organizations have a direct or indirect financial interest in the course or the outcome of sports competitions. Such an environment can incentives those seeking to exploit sport for illicit gain. The nature of competition manipulation involves criminal acts that are not unique to sport, including fraud and money-laundering as well as the involvement of organized crime. It is viewed as an attractive area to infiltrate because of the opportunity to make large profits with limited risk of detection and sanction as a result of a lack or non-uniformity of laws and regulations around the world.

The implication is that sports organizations cannot deal with this issue on their own and cooperation with law enforcement agencies and criminal justice authorities can only strengthen the fight against competition manipulation. Sport organizations only have the power to take disciplinary measures, while criminal justice authorities and law enforcement agencies have a wider range of measures at their disposal. Because of the complex and transnational nature of competition manipulation, the investigation of offenses can be challenging for a wide range of stakeholders and jurisdictions. Effective and timely investigations play a crucial role in prevention strategies. At the same time, the failure to investigate or ineffective investigations can embolden would-be offenders.

At the national, regional and international levels, there is growing recognition that more needs to be done to tackle these threats effectively, including the allocation of more resources. This has been highlighted at the international level, including by the Conference of the States Parties (the main policymaking body of the United Nations Convention against Corruption), the General Assembly and the Group of 20 Anti-Corruption Working Group, and by the entry into force on 1 September 2019 of the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, the only legally binding international instrument solely dealing with the issue of competition manipulation.

Vienna, Austria: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2023. 71p.

By Piotr Bakowski

Corruption is a major challenge for the European Union (EU), with all its Member States affected by the problem to some extent. Its scale, however, is difficult to measure both in Europe and elsewhere. Surveys on the perception of corruption among citizens and experts – such as the Global Corruption Barometer and Eurobarometer surveys – are the principal measurement tool. Since the 1990s, countries around the world have joined efforts to address corruption collectively. This has led to the emergence of widely recognised international laws and standards, adopted in particular by the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations. Mechanisms, such as the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), have been developed to monitor implementation of these rules. The EU has gradually adopted laws addressing a range of corruption-related issues. These include a Directive on the Fight against Fraud to the Union's Financial Interests, as well as directives on public procurement, whistleblowers and money-laundering. However, the legal framework thus created remains patchy, the lack of minimum rules on the definition of criminal offense and sanctions in the area of corruption being one important missing element. The EU has also developed its own tool for monitoring anti-corruption efforts – the EU anti-corruption report – only to abandon it after having issued its first edition. Recently, corruption-related issues have been addressed almost exclusively within the EU rule of law framework, a development criticised by various stakeholders, including the European Parliament. The latter has adopted numerous resolutions on corruption addressing, among other things, the impact of COVID 19, as well as systemic challenges to rule of law and deficiencies in the EU's fight against corruption. This briefing updates an earlier one published in 2022, which built on a study by 00 and Sofija Voronova, published in 2017.

Brussels: European Parliament, 2023. 11p.