The Council of Europe Convention on Manipulation of Sports Competitions: the best bet for the global fight against match
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ARTICLE
The Council of Europe Convention on Manipulation of Sports Competitions: the best bet for the global fight against match-fixing? Tom Serby
T.M.C. Asser Instituut 2015
Abstract The paper commences by looking at why there is a need for a new international treaty on match-fixing; the first part of the paper considers what is meant by ‘manipulation of sports competitions’, and the second part considers the recent growth of this phenomenon and its links with organised crime. The third part considers how the Convention came about and what its major provisions are, and also considers the tension between some of the fundamentals of European Union law (specifically the freedoms of movement and provision of services) and the Convention. The fourth part considers to what extent the creation of a sport-specific criminal match-fixing law would enhance the fight against corruption, concluding that it would make little difference. The fifth, sixth and seventh parts analyse what form the ‘‘dialogue and cooperation [between the stakeholders] at national and international levels’’ takes under the Convention, and considers to what extent the present relationship between these stakeholders, respectively, betting operators, sports governing bodies and national regulators, would change. The discussion at Parts IV–VII also considers to what extent the Convention impacts on the traditional relationship between the state and private sports bodies, the so-called ‘sporting autonomy’. The concluding section will summarise the strengths and weaknesses of the Convention, will consider its likely impact upon match-fixing, and consider its relationship with lex sportiva.
1 Introduction
Keywords Match-fixing Manipulation Betting International Convention
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T. Serby (&) Senior Lecturer Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, UK e-mail: [email protected]
Excluding the parallel market in illegal betting, the global sports market has been estimated at 1.8 % of global GDP, surpassing the textile and steel industries, perhaps double that if illegal sports betting is added.1 As sport has turned into ‘big business’, inevitably crime has followed. Although there is no agreement as to the number of cases since 20002 it appears that detected (and therefore presumably undetected also) incidents of match-fixing have increased dramatically this century compared to the last quarter of the previous century, prompting some academics, sports administrators and commentators to posit that match-fixing is a more serious threat to sport’s integrity than doping.3 This paper considers the provisions of the first major international treaty seeking to address the problem of match-fixing. The preamble to the 2014 Council of Europe Convention on Manipulation of Sports Competitions4 summarises its aims, stating that in the light of the ‘‘global threat to the integrity of sport and….involvement of organised crime in the manipulation of sports competitions……dialogue and co-operation among public authorities, sports organisations, competition
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