27 OCTOBER 2022. Racism,
doping, sports manipulation, harassment, corruption - all concepts that have
rarely been discussed in Hungarian sport. The Hungarian Basketball Federation (MKOSZ) has made a point of talking frankly to young
basketball players about the dangers they face in the world of sport. They are
also enlisting the help of an expert company.
The CSCF Sport Integrity Group has been providing education and consultancy services for more than 5 years, helping sports federations, police forces, and national and international organisations to protect the integrity of the sporting world from negative influences, including doping, sports manipulation, corruption, (sexual) harassment and racism.
CSCF has produced educational programmes for the International Volleyball
Federation, the International Snowboard Federation, and the Belgian, Czech,
Greek and Maltese Football Associations, among others. In addition to 23 police
forces and prosecutors from 11 countries, the Hungarian Police and the National
Tax and Customs Office have participated in Integrisport, an educational
programme for police forces and prosecutors on crime in the world of sport,
over the last 4 years, along with more than 70 other public and private
organisations dealing with the subject.
In these programmes, CSCF cooperates with UEFA, FIFPro, Interpol and the
Council of Europe.
Leading the way in sporting purity
The Hungarian Basketball Federation is committed to
preserving the purity of the sport, which is probably one of the reasons why we
have not yet seen any professional or even junior problems in our sport,"
said Peter Bodnar, secretary general of the association. At the same time, we
have to realise that there have been attempts so far, and there will probably
always be attempts, so we would like to prepare teams and young people on how
to do the right thing.
The aim of the cooperation between CSCF and MKOSZ is to map the purity of the
Hungarian basketball scene and, based on the information gained, to prepare a
tailor-made prevention programme for MKOSZ against sports manipulation and
doping. Doping and sports manipulation are the most comprehensively understood
topics, but the importance of betting and insider information and how to combat
these harmful phenomena are also included in the research and educational
material.
The educational material is already in preparation
In the first phase of the project, CSCF carried out a wide-ranging survey of
more than 400 players and professionals involved in Hungarian basketball to
find out their opinions and knowledge on match-fixing and other negative
phenomena affecting the sport.
- After the completion of the preparatory and research phase of the project,
our partner will prepare an educational programme, which will be shared with a
wider audience of the Hungarian basketball scene through online learning
material and live lectures, thus helping to preserve the purity of the sport of
basketball. We would like to have the e-learning platform for our programme,
IntegriHUNBasket, available this year.
Thanks to the cooperation between CSCF and MKOSZ, fair play in domestic
basketball is guaranteed in the long term, according to Dr. Norbert Rubicsek,
director of the CSCF Sport Integrity Group.
"Unfortunately, sports manipulation, doping and other phenomena against
the purity of sports life can be found in today's sports all over the world. In
the IntegriHUNBasket programme, we are working to keep this phenomenon as far
away from Hungarian basketball as possible and to create as much space as
possible for clean basketball," added Dr. Norbert Rubicsek.