The International Centre for Sport Security and the Olympic Committee of Portugal have announced a new code of conduct on sports betting integrity that will be introduced in Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries.
The new guidelines, the CSS-COP Standard CoC, will come into play in an effort to recognize and uphold standards on sport betting integrity. This includes protecting federations, clubs and athletes from possibilities of match fixing. It will also put an emphasis on focusing and protecting youth-exchange programs to encourage the youth to participate in sports.
“Protecting sports is a top priority on our agenda and backed by the expertise and valuable collaboration of the ICSS, the COP executive commission recently approved this Code of Conduct on Sport Betting Integrity as a first step of an action plan aimed to prepare Portuguese sports with the proper tools to face the challenge [of corruption in sports],” said COP President Manuel Constantino.
The ICSS-COP Standard CoC was created after a two-year research program on sports corruption conducted by University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Qatar-based ICSS. The result of that collaboration was the Sorbonne-ICSS Guiding Principles for Protecting the Integrity of Sports Competitions, a new set of regulations that will allow member federations to police its own athletes.
As part of these guidelines, any allegation or suspicion of violations can be reported to a designated officer, who will have the power to conduct an investigation and initiate appropriate disciplinary measures on anyone found guilty of violating the code of conduct. These violations include betting on or influencing the results of a sports competition directly or through a third party.
“At a time where the threats to the integrity of Olympic sports have had a sharp impact on many organizations in sports, the Olympic Committee of Portugal want to pave the way and implement several measures to effectively tackle this scourge to the credibility of sports,” Constantino added.
