According to Play the Game, an organisation devoted to ethical values in sport, the rising incidence of corruption is due to the changing role of sport: its increasing commercialisation and the resultant increase in media coverage, advertising revenue and corporate sponsorship. Star athletes earn salaries comparable to top CEOs, and major sport clubs deal in sums that rival many corporations. The mere presence of such money makes illicit behaviour attractive. Gambling encourages unethical conduct such as bribery of referees, officials or players to fix matches or influence league positions. The construction of sport facilities and the purchase of large amounts of equipment provide fertile fields for corruption in procurement.

Scandals have plagued various sports around the world. But it is in football where allegations of corruption have attracted the most attention. No sport has the same degree of popularity and fascination. Important games attract immense audiences, huge media attention and major corporate sponsorship. An estimated €2.5 billion will be spent on advertising in connection with the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Where money flows, corruption often follows. Often seen in the media are cases of match fixing to profit from betting or to affect league positions. This was the case with German referee Robert Hoyzer, convicted in 2005 of rigging nine matches in a €2 million fraud. Similar scandals shook football leagues in Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Portugal and, most recently, Italy, where the biggest national club, Juventus, faces a conflict of interest scandal involving club managers, players, referees, coaches, state officials and business.

Bribery and match fixing in football is a global phenomenon. In 2004, three former leading officials of the Kenya Football Federation were charged with bribery of referees and embezzlement of funds.

In China, up to 80 percent of referees in the new football “Super League” are suspected of having taken at least one bribe. Brazil made the news last year with a match-fixing scandal in which investors were found to have bribed referees to fix games for two betting websites. Jack Warner, vice president of FIFA, football’s governing body, was found to have been packaging match tickets and travel arrangements for the upcoming World Cup, and selling them exclusively through his own travel agency in Trinidad, an enormous conflict of interest.

But corruption reaches beyond the world of football. Any sport that attracts considerable commercial interest can be vulnerable, in part due to a lack of common principles, sound control systems and clear management structures. Despite the picture painted by news stories of single cases of corruption, the problem does not lie primarily with individual players, referees or judges, but with sports associations and their officials. Those governing sport at the highest levels must themselves be solid examples of integrity and fair play. Examples of corruption in the International Olympics Committee (IOC) and the International Volleyball Association demonstrate that this is not always the case.

The IOC has faced scandals involving bids to host the Games - a venture sure to bring media attention, prestige and capital to any city - as well as corruption linked to its officials. Former IOC vice president Kim Un-Yong was found guilty by the Criminal Court of South Korea of embezzling several million US dollars from the World Tae Kwon Do Federation. Another former IOC official, Mohamad (Bob) Hasan of Indonesia, was sentenced to six years in prison for his involvement in a scheme that cheated the state of US $75 million.

At the pairs figure skating competition at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, the gold medal was awarded to the Russian team in an alleged trade-off for a Russian judge awarding the ice dancing gold medal to the French skaters a few nights earlier. A French judge admitted to being pressured to judge the Russian team higher than the Canadians. The International Skating Union suspended the French judge and the president of the French Figure Skating Association, and awarded two sets of gold medals for the event, to the Russian and the Canadian pairs.

In recent years, though some sport associations have adopted ethical guidelines or codes of conduct, their impact has been minimal. For example, although the International Volleyball Federation has adopted a detailed code of conduct, its president, Ruben Acosta Hernandez, continues to head the association despite proven allegations of corruption against him. Those who oppose his continuing tenure risk exclusion from volleyball at every level.

According to Jens Anderson of Play the Game, the issue is “not simply adopting ethical guidelines, but having in place credible monitoring and sanctioning practices.” International sports associations are beyond government control and are therefore accountable only to their members.Moreover, despite the prominence of sport and the recent explosion of corruption cases in the media, corruption in sport is not seen as a widespread problem, but rather as a few isolated cases. In addition, there appears to be a lack of expertise on the subject. A number of initiatives have evolved in response to these concerns.

Following workshops on the fight against corruption in sport in Norway in 2005 and at TI’s Annual Members Meeting in November 2005, Transparency International signed the Play the Game Statement for Integrity and Anti-Corruption in Sport. It sets out general principles for tackling corruption in sport and sport management, to be used as a reference and as a starting point for national sports or associations as they develop codes of conduct. The guidelines are based on the values of transparency, honesty and accountability. The Statement for Integrity and Anti-Corruption in Sport provides concrete recommendations to national sport associations, governments and the media.

TI’s chapter in Switzerland has driven the issue within TI. The problem of corruption in sport is perhaps more visible in Switzerland because it hosts about 30 percent of international sport associations, including FIFA, the Union of European Football Associations, or UEFA, and the IOC. While there are many facets to the problem, TI Switzerland has chosen to focus its attention on the transfer of players. Based on its findings and on the Independent European Football Review, which defines the parameters of a European Union sport policy, the chapter is organising a roundtable with representatives from FIFA, UEFA, players’ agents, team managers, sport lawyers and players to advance the discussion on reducing corruption in sports.

TI Germany founded a working group on sport in July 2005 to create a body of knowledge and to support sport organisations and other interested parties to implement measures to increase transparency. While still in the early stages, the working group intends to hold events to raise awareness of the dangers of a lack transparency and help prevent corruption.

TI Kenya’s involvement in sport began in 2001 when the chapter was approached by eight of the 20 Kenyan national league clubs for assistance in investigating concerns about bribery of referees, embezzlement of funds and lack of accountability. Their investigation revealed widespread mismanagement in the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) and a lack of assistance from FIFA.

In 2004, TI Kenya facilitated publication of For the Good of the Game: Achieving Good Governance, Financial Transparency and Stakeholder Accountability for Saving and Improving Kenyan Football, which outlined the financial, constitutional, and governance challenges faced by the KFF and presented key issues for the future. In the same year, the inaugural ‘Transparency Cup’ football match, co-sponsored by TI Kenya and the Department of Governance and Ethics under John Githongo, was held to promote ethical attitudes and contribute to fair play through more transparent processes and activities.

TI Switzerland, TI Germany and TI Belgium participated in a Brussels seminar on money laundering in football and corruption organised at UEFA’s initiative by the Institute of European Studies . Representatives of institutions, football clubs and academia discussed money laundering and corruption in European football, identifying its origin and identifying networks used.

Sport associations and those employed by them should be shining examples of integrity and fair play, values that sport as a whole should represent. If these values prove to be insufficient incentives for action against corruption, targeting associations where it hurts most – in their wallets – may prove more effective.

“The image of sport is very important, particularly to sponsors. Usually they are buying a good image when they support a particular sport. Take away that good image and you put funding at risk,” says Sylvia Schenk of TI Germany’s working group on sport.

As international interest and media attention grow and international anti-corruption organisations demonstrate the widespread and interconnected nature of corruption in sport, the need for associations, officials, players and referees to commit to ethical behaviour will increase as well.