'Global Approach Needed' to Protect Integrity of Sports

Doha, June 02 (QNA) - A global strategy must be adopted to protect the integrity of international sports that are being tarnished by corrupt player practices arising out of match-fixing and spot-fixing those are stage managed by illegal betting cartels, a senior official said today. Qatar-based Sport Integrity at the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) Director Chris Eaton, told Qatar News Agency (QNA), "The issue has become far too endemic simply for spot correction. The correction has to be global. This has reached serious proportions today. I don't think people realize it actually takes fairly simple strategies but they have to be applied globally." The ICSS is an international, not-for-profit institution that aims to help event organizers to stage safer major sporting events. The Centre's mission is to improve security, safety and integrity in sport by addressing real issues and providing world-leading services, skills, networks and knowledge. Eaton's suggestions are significant. They come at time when the world's wealthiest cricket body - the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) - is quaking in its history's worst crisis following the media expose of spot-fixing scandal in the T20 Indian Premier League (IPL) which saw the arrest of three players from Mumbai, a week before the final match held in Kolkata on May 26. "Match-fixing is a big issue. Football has been under the focus for some time now and cricket as well. No league is safe, no league should sit back on their laurels and say 'we are the most popular, we are the wealthiest' you are not. All leagues, no matter how popular or wealthy, need to put in place protective measures. This is not about individual leagues protecting themselves, or individuals nations or regions. It is about a global protection," said Eaton. There are huge stakes for the organisers (BCCI), sponsors, official television broadcasters and IPL's nine-franchisee which pays close to a million dollars to purchase marquee cricketers at an auction. The 2013 edition saw 37 players being bought for a total sum of US $11.89 Million at the auction held in Chennai in February. The inaugural edition in 2008 saw DLF, the title sponsor, shell out US $ 44.193 Million (Rs 2.5 Billion) for a five-year contract. New sponsors PepsiCo paid IPL US $ 70.178 Million (Rs 3.97 Billion) for a five-year deal up to 2017. In the sixth edition of IPL, bets placed in the various illegal betting cartels were an astounding US $7.07 Billion (Rs 400 Billion). This is an increase by 25% from the fifth edition, according to private estimates. With such high volumes of currency circulating in the grey market, some players are vulnerable to the allure of spot-fixing which is bowling no-ball, or wide ball or conceding a specific number of runs in one or two overs, pre-planned with through the bookies' conduit. Some players agree to do 'spots' since its doesn't alter the result of the match unlike match-fixing. "Cricket has been challenged for the last 15 years," said Eaton. "The most notorious case was of Hansie Kronje in year 2000. Since then we have seen repeated instances of scandals in cricket. Cricket has done a lot to try and prevent the infiltrations in sport of criminals and the use of betting fraud." This ought to be a harbinger to all sports, particularly football. If you don't DO a lot, then even if you don't do it well, even with the best of intentions, then youll end up with the same sorts of repeated instances of scandal in your sport, he said and added that football too must address it. "Football is the most popular sport in the world. It ought to learn from cricket and advance itself from cricket. It has the wherewithal. It has the rich globally, it has the interests of governments and banks, it has the interests of betting and gambling, for instance and so it is very important that all these actors get together and do something serious instead of just talking about it." On the effect of this scandal and the arrest last week of the BCCI President N Srinivasan's son Gurunath Meiyappan for his alleged involvement in fixing spots on IPL's future, Eaton said, "I think it is a continuing problem for the IPL. "The IPL has a public license problem for a start in selling this now to the public of India, if not to the public of the world, that its league is clean, but I suppose you have to say this - that at least there has been some pro-active, positive action as a result of arresting these players. We’ll see what comes out of this trial."(QNA)