Archive | Sport RSS feed for this section

Time for the UCI to change tack

This article was originally published on Transparency International UK’s website The public name-calling this week by top organisations responsible for putting cycling back on track following the Lance Armstrong doping report (released last November by the US Anti-doping Agency) is destroying what is left of credible governance of the sport. As a fan of cycling, […]

Read full story Comments { 1 }

Cricket Corruption ‘not out’

Sport, nationalism, politics, business and entertainment. All are the aspects of cricket. An unfortunate addition to the list is corruption, which threatens the integrity of “the gentleman’s game”. Like the great batsman Sachin Tendulkar corruption seems not to leave the field. Ever since the exposure of cricket legend Hansie Cronje’s involvement in match fixing in […]

Read full story Comments { 8 }

After Armstrong agony, cycling must reform

Last week, the anti-doping body for Olympic sports in the United States, the US Anti-Doping Agency released a dossier in excess of 1000 pages supporting its assertion that 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and his US Postal Service team ran a doping programme from 1998-2005. It now seems that, bar three years, the […]

Read full story Comments { 1 }

Tackling match fixing needs good governance

On 20 September the European Union released a declaration calling for co-operation between everyone involved in sport to stop match-fixing. Sylvia Schenk, Transparency International’s senior advisor for sport discusses why this is only a first step and what more needs to be done. In the past two years, the world of sport and politics finally […]

Read full story Comments { 3 }
Visitors pose with Olympic rings at London Olympic Park

Olympic integrity

Stick to the rules, try hard and play fair: three simple injunctions that capture the essence of Olympic spirit and the message of the anti-corruption movement. It’s not surprising that sport and the Olympics are used to inspire young people and to promote integrity. But sport has a darker side, too, and with 10,500 athletes […]

Read full story Comments { 4 }

Corruption and the Olympics

On the eve of London 2012, Robert Barrington, director of external affairs at Transparency International UK, ponders the corruption risks inherent in London’s staging of the Olympics games. The Olympic Games are a wonderful celebration of excellence in sport.  But is there a danger that corruption may have tainted the Games?  As London prepares to […]

Read full story Comments { 3 }
Image: Creative Commons, Flickr / Brian Hefele

FIFA’s uncertain future

The good news to come out of the 17 July press conference  of FIFA, world football’s governing body, was the announcement that there is now an opportunity for a serious investigation into past allegations of corruption. This must include the activities of Joseph Blatter, the president of FIFA, who has been under fire again this […]

Read full story Comments { 5 }

EURO 2012 and match-fixing: An interview with Simon Kuper

Every four years all eyes in Europe are on one big event – the European Football Championships. Over the past weeks everyone in Europe seemed to talk about the matches, its players, but also about what it means for the two host countries, Poland and Ukraine, to host such a majour event. One big question […]

Read full story Comments { 2 }

The pressure intensifies for real reform at FIFA – not just words

This week the Council of Europe joined the voices with those calling for FIFA, world football’s governing body, to start investigating past scandals now, and not just talk about it. In a resolution, adopted on April 25th, the Council called for a transparent investigation into the election in 2011 that saw Sepp Blatter reinstated as […]

Read full story Comments { 2 }

Defining the boundaries: a blue print for enhancing cricket administration

The International Cricket Council, the world governing body for cricket, will be presented this week with recommendations from a committee led by Lord Woolf on how to reform the way it does business both on and off the pitch. I welcome this review as long overdue, and was more than happy to contribute some of […]

Read full story Comments { 4 }