National approach to eliminating sport graft not before time

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Patrick Smith From: The Australian June 09, 2011 12:00AM

IT can be safely argued that Australian sport has come late to the dangers of betting and its manipulation.

It was back in 1994 that cricketers Mark Waugh and Shane Warne provided information to an Indian bookmaker. It was in 1995 that the pair were fined by the ACB and not until 1998 before the scandal was uncovered by the media.

It has taken until 2011 for the country's major sports and the federal government to agree that match-fixing and corruption required national confrontation backed by federal legislation.

Yesterday's meeting of the Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports and federal Sports Minister Mark Arbib agreed to a swag of recommendations from its chief executive Malcolm Speed, previously the head of the International Cricket Council.

Most important is the decision to encourage the state governments to adopt legislation that would make sports corruption a crime carrying heavy penalties peaking with a 10-year jail sentence. Arbib will put the proposal to the national sports ministers at a meeting on the Gold Coast tomorrow. Not before time.

Australian sport has been naive at best in not ensuring their codes were better protected against corruption.

Since Waugh and Warne unwisely took money for information about weather and pitch conditions cricket has been shamed by repeated instances of match and spot-fixing. The NRL and the AFL have been forced to follow up unusual betting trends this year. Police charges have been laid in the NRL case.

While sports such as tennis and cricket have promptly and independently established integrity operations - Austrian tennis player Daniel Koellerer was banned for life for match-fixing last month - other sports have been slow to realise the dangers confronting their competitions.

But concern and diligence are coming in a rush now. Victorian legislation - specifically informed by the AFL initiatives - is being pushed for national adoption. It will allow all sports to monitor individuals and their betting patterns if bookmakers want the right to bet on sporting fixtures. The push for a national scheme was raised last month by Des Gleeson, a former Racing Victoria head steward, who was commissioned by the Victorian government to establish protocols to protect the integrity of all sports.

The NRL last week acted independently, banning particular types of spot betting that it felt compromised the sport. Under Speed's recommendations sports will have the right to ban or suspend betting types it feels raise integrity concerns.

While all of Speed's recommendations have been embraced by COMPPS it is not a complete report. Speed advised the chief executives about the pitfalls of credit betting but left it to the individual sports as to whether it should be outlawed.

It seems so obvious. If an official or a player runs up a large and unsustainable debt betting on credit then he or she is vulnerable to manipulation. For example the debt might be reduced or extinguished for information that can be used to corrupt the betting market.

The proposal to introduce a $5000 ceiling on cash betting is essential. Without it investigators are left to rely on video footage to track down suspicious bets and payouts. A hit-and-miss forensic tool at best. Punters might feel it is an intrusion into their privacy and that their betting is their business but such claims hardly outweigh the need to ensure sport is clean.

The Minister is keen for all sports to be proactive and independent in policing their codes, for all to have their own quirks and nuances. But national legislation that empowers courts to jail corrupters for 10 years is the tension that pulls the national fight against fraud together.

Importantly, small and less well-resourced sports and competitions will have the support of COMPPS. Yesterday's meeting also agreed to establish a Betting Integrity Group (BIG) which will be a resource for codes and sports that do not fall under the COMPPS umbrella.

Finally, as broad and comprehensive as Speed's report was, complacency is corruption's partner. COMPPS chairman James Sutherland (Cricket Australia) said after the meeting there had been few instances of corruption in Australian sport and that major sports had been successful in dealing with the issue. Given that there has been no national approach, no national legislation and precious little attention to corruption before yesterday, that is a guess and not a fact. The implementation of Speed's report and the adoption of laws to punish it must be acted on and invoked quickly. To do anything else is to gamble with the integrity of our sports.

AFL fans the biggest losers

Rod Nicholson From: Sunday Herald Sun April 24, 2011 12:00AM 

THE most vital ingredient in sport - the fans - seem to be the last consideration when administrators negotiate the path ahead. 

The AFL has evolved into a national competition of enormous wealth and credibility. Soon 

 it will announce the new media rights, expected to pump $1 billion into the coffers that 

 must cater for the players, administration, development and a host of other vital 

 components.

 For that $1 billion, who can blame television outlets for insisting games are played in 

 premium timeslots so they can command high ratings, and, therefore, high prices for advertising?

It is part of the evolution, they doubtless would argue. Give the public the appropriate timeslot to watch the footy, especially at night when work or house duties are done and people can relax in front of the box.

The AFL can hardly complain, as it has been compliant in this shift - take the money for the box or work with less.

This is all well and good, but what about the fans? In a 2009 survey, commissioned by the AFL, 49.4 per cent of fans voted Saturday afternoon as their preferred match-watching time.

So what influence do the wishes of the fans have?

In Melbourne this season only 21 games are assured on a Saturday afternoon, with perhaps one or two more in the final round.

That's less than one Saturday afternoon game a round in Melbourne, the home of footy.

The MCG played host to a cracking draw between Essendon and Carlton last weekend - the only Saturday afternoon game there until Round 14.

This should be food for thought for officials. Half of the fans in their own survey say they prefer Saturday afternoon games, yet we have 21, or perhaps 23, for the season and only seven at the MCG.

Another beef from the public is that televised night games are not shown live.

It would be wise for both the AFL and the TV networks to give some ground to the people, without whom the clubs and the competition itself, and therefore the interest of networks, would wilt.

This means live telecasts and Saturday arvo footy.