Time to act: Europe’s political response to fighting the manipulation of sports competitions
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text
adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of
the Assembly, on 12 October 2020 (see Doc. 15116, report of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education
and Media, rapporteur: Mr Roland Rino Büchel).See
also Recommendation 2178
(2020).
1. Sports integrity is at a decisive
moment in its history, due to the recent coming into force of the
Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions
(CETS No. 215, Macolin Convention) and the imminent setting up of
its follow-up committee in autumn 2020.
2. Council of Europe member States must adopt appropriate laws
and sanctions to uphold the integrity of sports competitions against
manipulations, and provide awareness programmes and training in
the ethics and integrity in the field of sport, to make sure that
every athlete, coach or competition stakeholder understands the principles
of fair play, and knows how to recognise, resist and report manipulations
of sports competitions. However, the Parliamentary Assembly recalls
that the manipulation of sports competitions is a global phenomenon
of organised crime, often involving money laundering, corruption,
bribery or illegal betting, and it can only be tackled effectively
through a common political commitment and legally binding international
co-operation in the fields of information exchange, data protection,
law enforcement and criminal justice.
3. The Assembly deplores that in five years only seven member
States of the Council of Europe have ratified the convention, 31
other States have signed but not ratified it and 19 of the signatories,
entangled in the European Union internal decision-making procedures,
have delayed the ratification process. Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
the Czech Republic, Ireland, Malta, Monaco, North Macedonia, Romania,
Sweden and Turkey have not signed the convention.
4. Many governments have taken concrete measures and are making
significant efforts, which are to be praised. To date 32 national
platforms are operational, although several do not have a formal
framework. Many countries have updated their legislation to comply
with the convention and co-operation through informal networks is
active. However, the Assembly considers that sport integrity matters
remain generally low on the political agenda; this has not helped
to terminate the continuing institutional deadlock imposed by Malta
over the definition of “illegal sports betting” in the convention.
The Assembly finds no justification for Malta’s position other than
deliberately obstructing the convention’s entry into force, whether
by legal manoeuvres, attempts to modify the convention or simply
to delay the necessary reforms in the country itself.
5. This stalemate situation continues to generate discomfort
within the European Union (EU) institutions and among EU member
States. The Assembly welcomes the recent conclusion of the meeting
of the Council of the EU sports ministers in which they agreed to
“[e]xamine ways, together with the Commission, to solve the deadlock
with regard to the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation
of Sports Competitions... in view of enabling the EU and all its
Member States to complete their respective ratification processes
and accede to the Convention as soon as possible”.
6. The Assembly denounces the new attempt by Malta to amend the
definition of “illegal sports betting” in the convention under the
provisions of its Article 38 as yet another tactic to advance its
cause and to neutralise the existing definition, thereby significantly
weakening the system established by the convention. The Assembly
expresses its opposition to any move leading to amending the convention
shortly after its entry into force. It underlines that amendments
to a convention, if any, should build on the experience gained through
its implementation and be aimed at strengthening the system and
at ensuring its consistency with evolving situations, but certainly
not at weakening it. Requesting an amendment would paralyse the
effective implementation of the convention. In addition, it would
challenge the Council of Europe treaty-making process and set an
unfortunate precedent, which could pave the way for other possible
challenges against new Council of Europe conventions after their
adoption.
7. The Assembly is concerned that the prolonged deadlock seriously
hampers progress on many issues that require urgent international
attention, including introducing stricter regulations for responsible
sports betting. It also undermines the setting up of effective data
exchange, judicial co-operation and intelligence-sharing mechanisms,
and it curtails the possibility to deal effectively with key issues
related, inter alia, to transparency
and conflict of interest, and to prevent abuses of a position as
sponsor, data provider, integrity service provider, part-owner of
a sports club or competition stakeholder to facilitate the manipulation
of a sports competition or to misuse inside information.
8. Many long-term challenges remain for public authorities in
addressing the manipulation of sports competitions in order to grasp
the complex nature of the issues and find effective approaches to
combat associated crime, corruption and money laundering, while
working closely with others. This requires aligning sports, sports
betting and national law-enforcement and judicial bodies in a collective,
coherent and co-ordinated effort to tackle corruption and malpractice
in sport and for sports betting operators and regulators to design
and implement concrete actions to prevent and deter criminal practices.
The time to act is now. Further delays will only benefit criminal
networks and undermine the values of sport, which will also jeopardise
the values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights. This
is particularly dangerous in the present context given the drastic
impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the financial sustainability
of sport, which carries a high risk of the further expansion of
money laundering, illegal betting and manipulation of sports competitions.
9. In light of the above, the Assembly calls on the Council of
Europe member and observer States,
9.1 as regards the ratification of the Macolin Convention,
to:
9.1.1 sign and ratify the convention without further
delay, if they have not yet done so;
9.1.2 refrain from any actions that could result in weakening
any provisions of the convention and the intergovernmental co-operation
it promotes;
9.1.3 in particular, in the case of Malta, stop seeking new
avenues to amend the definition of “illegal sports betting” enshrined
in the convention and sincerely aim at joining it to defend its position
as a fully fledged member of the follow-up committee;
9.2 as regards the implementation of the provisions of the
Macolin Convention, before or after ratification, to:
9.2.1 building
upon the Macolin Roadmap, keep under review or undertake an assessment
of the major threats emerging from the different types of sports
manipulation in order to set key priority areas and a strategic
roadmap to support the formal implementation and functioning of national
platforms;
9.2.2 allocate proper resources in order to make sure that national
legislation on the manipulation of sports competitions is effectively
enforced, taking active and meaningful steps to withhold, entirely
or partially, public funding from any sports organisations that
do not effectively implement prevention and training programmes
or apply regulations for combating manipulation of sports competitions;
9.2.3 widen the outreach and assistance provided to sport governing
bodies in order to develop awareness, prevention, education and
training for a wide range of participants and competition stakeholders
from grassroots sport to high-performance levels;
9.2.4 work with the Council of Europe Secretariat and the convention’s
follow-up committee to ensure that national sports and sports betting
integrity strategies and action plans are shared, are in line with
the Macolin Convention and support its implementation.
10. The Assembly urges European Union institutions to look for
a rapid solution to remove the obstacles preventing EU member States
from ratifying the convention so that its follow-up committee can
start operating with a maximum number of States parties. To this
end, it hopes that the European Union presidency will put the issue
of the ratification of the Macolin Convention on the agenda of a
forthcoming meeting of the Committee of the Permanent Representatives
of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union (Coreper I),
and that the European Parliament will be active in supporting a
positive outcome.
11. The Assembly recalls that national parliaments have a key
role to play in adopting legislation and exercising oversight over
government activities, notably in cross-border and cross-sectoral
policy areas. It therefore calls upon members of relevant committees
of national parliaments:
11.1 in
particular those of the 31 States whose governments have signed
the convention, to encourage its speedy ratification;
11.2 of the countries that have not signed the convention,
to request the reasons for the delays or the obstacles that prevent
their governments from signing the convention and encourage them
to do so.
