The Africa Football Business Show EP 24

The Football Foundation for Africa is an international social enterprise seeking to drive investment into the development of grassroots football in Africa. Our ultimate goal is to create employment opportunities while at the same time enhancing the employability of the youth in Africa. Working with different stakeholders we aim to protect the foundation of African football, that is, the talent and passion, through advocacy for better governance of the beautiful game at all levels. We want to see Africa compete equally at the world stage by embracing all-round professionalism.

The Football Foundation for Africa

To illustrate, FIFA reported a global betting turnover of 136 billion dollars from the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Football is big business, as many like to put it. A significant part of this business is the international betting and leisure industries, with revenues running into the billions. To illustrate, FIFA reported a global betting turnover of 136 billion dollars from the 2018 FIFA World Cup. At the 2002 World Cup, this figure stood at 11 billion dollars! Football is also the world’s most popular sport wielding tremendous symbolic power, and perhaps more than any other sport, it provides a mirror into our society.One of the hallmarks of our society is corruption, and since football provides a mirror into our community, corruption is rife in football. On the sporting aspect of the game, corruption is manifested mainly through match-fixing. Match-fixing has existed in sports for a long time, but in the recent past, the vice has become more apparent and globalised, posing an existential threat to sports as we know it. There are two distinct fixes: match-fixing for gambling, where the motivation is profit maximisation on the gambling market and everything else. Everything else is arrangements where someone is fixing the game because of a “tournament incentive”. These “tournament incentives” reward the team/athlete to lose/win the game. A starting point for our discussion would be to understand these two types/motivations for match-fixing and how prevalent they are. Match-fixing has always been a problem in sports, but the last few years have seen an increase in publicised cases, and African football especially has seen a rise in incidences. Several factors have allowed match-fixing threats to persist, including personal greed and weak governance structures of sport as a sector. Further, easily accessible global betting markets that are open to exploitation, low prioritisation of match-fixing as a threat by law enforcement agencies and the use of sport by organised criminals to advance their interests.The IOC (2015) introduced a variety of strategies in the OMC to prevent match-fixing. For example, the OMC encouraged sports organisations to establish constant surveillance systems to prevent match-fixing and suggested that athletes, referees, and officials should be provided educational programs regarding the code of conduct to handle the temptation of match-fixing. In attempting to address these causes, 28 countries have proposed, adopted, or enacted specific legislation criminalising match-fixing. Yet even in those jurisdictions where such sanctions exist, regulations have been ineffective.Unfortunately, the complicated transnational nature of sports betting makes it difficult for regulations to prevent match-fixing effectively. Proving that match-fixing occurred requires collecting and analysing substantial betting evidence, which is particularly difficult to obtain in unregulated betting markets. Furthermore, despite regulations, significant financial incentives continue to pressure athletes to participate in match-fixing.In this episode, we address the following objectives:<ul><li>Understanding what match-fixing is and why it happens</li><li>Demonstrate the prevalence of match-fixing and why we need to address it</li><li>Understand legal, technical and other measures to curb match-fixing and how these can be improved.</li><li>We will endeavour to provide an African context to the issue while appreciating the global nature of the problem</li></ul>

<h2>Our Speakers</h2>Marcello Presilla, a lawyer, has worked for many years in sports integrity and sports betting. He is author of a number of books and articles on anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, betting and gaming. For years, he has run integrity programs with footballers and clubs under the umbrella of the Italian FIGC, Lega Serie A, Lega Pro and Lega Serie D. He is involved in sports and criminal investigation alongside the Italian Sports Prosecutor, Police and State Prosecutors. He is currently Integrity Executive at Sportradar Ag.Björn Hessert is a PhD candidate at the University of Zurich, specialising in sports law. He is a guest lecturer on the subject of sports law in domestic and international universities. Björn has a Master's degree from the University of Melbourne (LL.M.) and was admitted to the German bar in 2019.

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The Africa Football Business Show EP 24

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The Africa Football Business Show EP 24

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