All posts by : CSCF

The conference: an ideal setting to share outcomes and highlight the progress made by law enforcement and judiciary in tackling sport manipulation in recent years.

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.

Norbert Rubicsek, director of CSCF Sport Integrity Group, who was the moderator and one of the sport manipulation experts on this event, commented: “When we connect wrongdoings to the sport domain, we may be tempted to leave sport to protect itself with no external support. Looking at the issues international sport has been facing in the last decade, we can see that this approach, while generally effective with regard to disciplinary measures, leaves a caveat with regard to non-disciplinary actions. Sport organisations should not be expected to be equipped to fight against organized criminal groups alone. This would endanger athletes and sport management, expecting them to take on, in some way, the role of law enforcement. Outside the disciplinary jurisdiction, taking on such criminals is the duty of law enforcement.

The key to this endeavour being successful is awareness and knowledge: the investigators should know not only that there is an actual crime allegedly committed but they should also understand it and be able to relate it to the modus operandi they have already likely seen in other areas. Our aim through this symposium was to facilitate understanding by law enforcement officers of the potential crimes through misuse of sport and to understand the background and underlying issues”

CSCF highlighted topical integrity issues in sport and emphasized e-sport in particular, given the unique risk factors that make it a tantalizing target for criminal activity. E-sport has rapidly evolved from an entertainment platform with minimal following. The popularity, revenue, and betting now rivals, even surpasses, that of traditional sports. The disjointed regulatory scene will continue to be abused by criminals who, throughout history and across culture, prove themselves adept at changing tactics to exploit vulnerabilities in other contexts.

The symposium is the first edition of the educational pathway that will prepare the Hungarian law enforcement for sport manipulation and sport related criminal activities. The next event takes place in November 2022.