IOC highlights its efforts undertaken towards sport integrity

December 11, 2023

As 2023 comes to an end, the International Olympic Committee is spotlighting the work it has undertaken towards protecting sport’s integrity and fighting corruption in sport, at all levels.

International Anti-Corruption Day, held on 9th December, saw the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reiterate its determination to protect sport’s integrity with the day offering an important opportunity to raise awareness of the threat of corruption across all sectors of society, while also giving the IOC an opportunity to highlight its ongoing efforts.

2023 highlights
IOC’s efforts range from educational measures for different key stakeholders, to advocacy, to new resources and much more:

January: Via the Olympic Movement Unit on the Prevention of Manipulation of Competitions (OM Unit PMC), the IOC supports educational measures for athletes and officials to prevent competition manipulation at the Winter European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF).

February: In order to promote national cooperation, with the Council of Europe and INTERPOL, the IOC organises a webinar for National Olympic Committees (NOCs), law enforcement and state officials from Iceland, North Macedonia and Türkiye, all of which recently signed or ratified the Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (Macolin Convention).

March: The IOC allocates a fund of US$10 million per Olympiad to continue to support the successful work of the OM Unit PMC, reinforcing the monitoring around the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, and expanding the number of monitored events organised by International Federations (IFs) and multi-sport event organisers.

April: During the ASOIF Governance Workshop, bringing together more than 50 representatives from the Summer and Winter Olympic IFs, the IOC gives a presentation on the revised Basic Universal Principles of Good Governance and the IPACS Sport Governance Benchmark.

May: Publication of the paper Integrity in sport: IOC approach, which summarises the work led by the IOC to support the Olympic Movement in upholding ethical principles in the fields of anti-corruption; good governance; financial control systems; the prevention of competition manipulation; cooperation with law enforcement; and others.

June: The IOC’s 2022 Annual Report is issued with a dedicated section on “credibility”, explaining the measures undertaken in governance and ethics, including details of the IOC Risk and Assurance Governance Model, fighting competition manipulation and all forms of corruption in sport.

July: Led by the OM Unit PMC, nearly 50 representatives from 37 IFs come together at Olympic House in Lausanne for a workshop to share information and exchange knowledge on how to prevent competition manipulation at sports competitions.

August: The IOC works with the event organisers of the upcoming Asian, Panam and Pacific Games to support them in the prevention of competition manipulation through awareness-raising measures. Multi-sport events of that scale usually attract a significant number of high-level athletes and involve many NOCs.

September: The IOC is a key contributor to the 6th Annual General Conference of the International Partnership against Corruption in Sport (IPACS) held in Vienna, Austria, which brings together 100 IPACS partner representatives, including from governments, sports organisations, intergovernmental organisations and experts from the IPACS Task Forces.

October: The IOC plays an instrumental role in issuing two new resources on the fight against corruption in sport: The IOC-OECD “Guidelines on the Effective Delivery of Infrastructure and Associated Services in the Context of the Olympic Games” and the new IPACS legislative guide entitled “Legal Approaches to Tackling Bribery in Sport”.

November: The IOC hosts the inaugural meeting of the new IPACS Task Force on the promotion of good governance to prevent corruption in sport, attended virtually by over 45 experts to discuss ways of distributing the IPACS tools across all stakeholder groups.

December: On IACD (9th December), the IOC team participated in the 5th America's Best Practices Symposium in Miami, Florida, to present good practices of financial governance as part of the IPACS expertise. Organised by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee in partnership with Panam Sports and Olympic Solidarity, the event was attended by 41 NOCs from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean. The IPACS Sport Governance Benchmark was highlighted as a practical example of how the IOC is promoting the prevention of corruption within sport.

The IOC is also joining the UNODC Conference of the States Parties (COSP) to UNCAC in Atlanta, USA, from 11th to 15th December, to participate in high-level discussions about safeguarding sport from corruption in general, and at major sport events in particular.

About International Anti-Corruption Day
International Anti-Corruption Day (IACD) is celebrated annually by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a close partner of the IOC. The theme of this year’s edition was “UNCAC at 20: Uniting the World Against Corruption”, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).

Image. Getty Images via International Olympic Committee.

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