Safeguarding Sports Integrity Against Crime and Corruption: An Australian Perspective

Abstract

Safeguarding the integrity of international sports has assumed greater urgency the world over. Sports bodies, associations, clubs, national teams, sports officials and law enforcement agencies are today dealing with a variety of threats ranging from match-fixing to corruption, illegal betting and use of performance and image enhancing drugs in sport. The Australian sporting world is not immune from these threats, and lately, the revelations of the involvement of organised criminal identities in sports, the world over, and in Australia shows the seriousness and complexity of the challenge international sport confronts. This chapter presents an Australian perspective on the nature of integrity threats that various sporting codes in Australia are facing and measures that can help deal with them. The authors discuss a number of match-fixing cases in the National Rugby league, A-League Football and cricket in Australia and identify different variants of sports corruption and vulnerabilities of professional sports to transnational and organised crime. The authors analyse how sports corruption from being a blind spot of the law enforcement agencies in Australia, until some years ago, has become one of their top priorities, yielding encouraging outcomes on various counts. This chapter takes a roll call of measures undertaken by the Commonwealth and state institutions, sports bodies and federations, clubs and national associations, and the law enforcement agencies to curb match-fixing, corruption and drug use, and preserve the integrity of sport in Australia. The recommendations furthered by the authors could be relevant for other countries as well.