European Parliament adopts match-fixing resolution
The European Parliament has called on the European Commission, Member States and sports organizations to wage a battle, jointly and individually, against match-fixing. The European Parliament equally urged the creation of an international campaign against corruption. This initiative follows the outcome of investigations conducted by the European Police Office (Europol), which unmasked match-fixing of 380 football matches played in 15 countries around the world involving 425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals. The match-fixing reportedly produced profits of over €8,000,000.
Through Resolution 2013/2567(RSP), the European Parliament urged stakeholders of the fight against match-fixing to better organize their efforts and share best practices to combat corruption and illegal gambling in sport. The Resolution emphasizes on the importance of exchange of information between Member States and non-Member states on persons connected with match-fixing offences, in particular with countries which the Resolution refers to as “Asian betting havens”.
The Resolution urges EU Member States to incorporate match-fixing in their national criminal law and to establish universal minimum sanctions. Member States have been called to establish specialist law enforcement units that tackle match-fixing. The Resolution foresees that these enforcement units serve also for cooperation with stakeholders and for gaming operators to provide information on irregular gaming patterns.
Finally the Resolution underlines the importance of education on the dangers of match-fixing particularly the danger it poses for sports organisations, recommends that codes of conduct are drawn up and underlines possible sanctions for match-fixing based on a zero-tolerance policy.
