In its bid to strengthen the integrity and credibility of sport and for the successful protection of clean athletes, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) today published the Olympic Movement Code on the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions.
A first of its kind, the Code aims to provide the Olympic Movement and its members with harmonised regulations to protect all competitions from the risk of manipulation. Any sports organisation bound by the Olympic Charter is expected to respect the provisions of the new Code, which was approved by the IOC Executive Board during its meetings last week.
On the occasion of the publication of the Code, IOC President Thomas Bach said: “We must do everything we can to protect the millions of clean athletes around the world. Protecting them goes hand in hand with ensuring the environment in which the athletes operate is safe from corrupting influences. Today’s publication of the Code is an important step in fighting manipulation in sport. It is a joint effort of various key stakeholders of the Olympic Movement, particularly the International Federations, and another tangible outcome of Olympic Agenda 2020.”
The Code is a regulatory framework defining the different kinds of violations, minimum standards of disciplinary procedures and the scope of sanctions. All National Olympic Committees (NOCs), International Federations (IFs) and their respective members at the continental, regional and national levels, as well as IOC recognised organisations, are called upon to implement regulations in compliance with the Code. This does not prevent sports organisations from having more stringent regulations in place. In order to ensure its application, these stakeholders are also requested to undertake educational measures for their officials, judges and referees as well as for their delegations to international competitions and to multi-sports events.
The first implementation of the Code at a Games edition will be in Rio de Janeiro next August, following last week’s approval by the IOC Executive Board of the Rules of Application for the Olympic Games.
The IOC took the lead in preparing such a Code following the International Forum for Sports Integrity last April. The Olympic Movement was called upon to develop global standards regarding the manipulation of competitions and related corruption in compliance with the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions. It also coincided with the IOC’s renewed commitment to protect clean athletes and the integrity of sport as outlined in Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement.
All measures related to ethics and compliance, transparency and good governance recommended by Olympic Agenda 2020 have now been implemented. Measures include the creation of a USD 10 million fund to prevent match-fixing, manipulation and related corruption. The IOC has also initiated and is implementing around the world robust educational awareness programmes in cooperation with INTERPOL to prevent Olympic and other sporting events from any kind of manipulation. A new mechanism for reporting potential cases of competition manipulation as well as other violations of the integrity of sport – the Integrity and Compliance Hotline – was also successfully launched earlier this year. Moreover, the IOC has reinforced its Integrity Betting Intelligence System (IBIS) and is enhancing monitoring and information exchange between law enforcement agencies, sports organisations and betting operators/regulators.
