The Sport International Global Alliance has opened, this morning, its first-ever Sport Integrity Week. The digital event, which brings together various actors from the world of sport, will be broadcasting panels until September 11, stimulating profound debates aimed at building a stronger system that prevents and punishes any form of crime in sport.
The Chairman of SIGA Franco Frattini, an Italian Magistrate and former Italian Foreign Minister with a vast experience in fighting organised crime, welcomed attendees at the beginning of the inaugural day.
Frattini gave a welcome speech in which he explained the purpose of the Sport Integrity Week, underlining the key points to be discussed in the days to come.
“It is the first time that SIGA has organised an event of this magnitude to talk about sports integrity. For a whole week, we will be promoting our foundational values, to promote legality and push for severe measures while punishing crimes and violations that happen in the sporting framework.
“We invited athletes, experts, representatives of sport institutions and organisations, private entities as well as law enforcement authorities, to build an efficient and solid network that considers the fight against crime in all its forms and from as many different perspectives as possible,” said Frattini.
PROGRAMME A rich programme has been preprared to open the 7-day event. An Olympic legend of the calibre of two-time gold medalist Edwin Moses confirmed his participation, together with two-time WNBA champion Renée Montgomery. Executives from the NCAA, National Lacrosse League as well as the Co-Chairman of the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group also joined the day one of the event, where AIPS marks its presence through the words of its President Gianni Merlo, who will also join the significant roster of panelists.
“We will be cooperating on new ideas and listening to innovative proposals, without forgetting to implement what has been already succesfully undertaken,” said Frattini.
MOBILISATION “The disucssions will range among corruption, illegal money flows, inflitrations of criminal organisation in sports and the exploitations of the young athletes coming from the poorest countries in the world, who are victims of those belonging to the criminal network.
“In addition, racism and sexism will be two essential topics, because the underestimation of such social dangers would jeoparidise the purity of the world of sport.
“We will be promoting a better cooperation between private public sectors and civil society. SIGA is an excellent expression of the civil society, whose efforts are oriented towards a vast mobilisation of all its actors.
“This event testifies that such mobilisation has been achieved, and it is in itself itself agreat success. Nobody is immune to the risk of illegality and crime in the world of sport. Illegality transforms the olympic values of sport into unclear business and manipulation, destroying the purity where our common roots stand.”
A STRONGER NETWORK Drawing from the years spent working on Anti-mafia procedures in Italy, Frattini added that the only way to succeed is a collective action.
“This is the reason why SIGA exists. Organised crime often uses practices such as betting and match-fixing to generate a multi-billion opportunity, as it has been demontrated by the latest reports published by the Europol.
“We are talking about a transnational, fast-growing activity. For this reason, we can’t consider such machinations as minor forms of organised crime.
“In Italy, maphia’s gangs are interested in buying lower-level sport clubs in economic disruption. This is how they infiltrate into sport.
“By doing so, sport becomes the facade through which they pretend to present themselves positively, attempting to clean their crimes and illegal business.”
KEY POINTS To conclude his speech, Frattini went through some essential key points making up the philosophy of the SIGA’s Integrity Week:
1. EDUCATION – It is the first, indispensabile key to succeed. SIGA is making its biggest investment for the benefit of the younger generations of athletes. Through the establishment SIGA Youth Development in Sport, one of SIGA’s strategic areas, the alliance work to ensure the highests standards of respect, dignity and integrity for young athletes.
2. RAISNG AWARENESS – While organising conferences and activities, SIGA is committed to spread the idea of a clean sport to a growing numbers of participants. In absence of it, sportis nothing but a mere form of investment.
3. INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION – Purpose of the whole event and main goal for the next future, exhanged information ibetween law enforcement entities, states, sport organisations and many other subject is an essential step in the fight against crime. A wider and better connected system wards off criminal infiltrations within its grey areas.
4. STRONG PREVENTION – Although ensuring a stronger action to prevent injustice is an imperative duty, it is very important that such concern runs in parallel with prompt punishments for those trying to pollute the genuine values of sport by breaking the rules.
