Offering for the first time a truly comprehensive look at corruption in sport, the Global Report on Corruption in Sport reveals the staggering scale, manifestation, and complexity of corruption and criminal networks in sport at international and national levels.
While corruption in sport is not a new phenomenon – fraudulent activities in the running of sports institutions and competitions have been documented from the times of the Ancient Olympic Games – the past two decades have witnessed a substantial increase in criminal activities within this area. Indeed, a range of factors left it ripe for manipulation, with the perfect storm of globalization, a huge influx of money, the rapid growth of legal and illegal sports betting, and technological advances transforming the way sport is played and consumed and are making it increasingly attractive presented significant opportunities for to criminal networks seeking to exploit sport for illicit and illegal profit to capitalize.
Against this backdrop, the Global Report breaks down an extensive range of issues, analyzing the role of illegal betting, competition manipulation, abuse in sport, and the susceptibility of major sporting events to corruption, and the involvement of organized crime, among others. It also highlights the changing landscape of sport and its relation to corrupt practices, the existing initiatives to tackle the problem, issues related to detecting and reporting wrongdoing, as well as how existing legal frameworks can be applied to address corruption within this area. Offering a roadmap to effectively tackle the issue of crime and corruption in sports, the Global Report also sets out policy considerations to help address these issues.
