corruption in sport essay

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Anti-bribery and Corruption Policies in International Sports Governing Bodies

International Sports Governing Bodies (“ISGBs”) are diverse in their aims but share a need to maintain a reputation of accountability in the eyes of their stakeholders. While some literature analyses the general governance concerns faced by these organizations, there is limited focus on anti-bribery and corruption (“ABC”) within this sphere. This paper's research aim is an exploratory evaluation of the ABC best practice policies that exist within ISGBs, asking how they can be assessed and what best practice policies currently exist within this framework. This paper undertakes a critical review of the diverse ABC governance policies in the largest ISGBs through content analysis on governance documents publically available on the sample ISGB websites. This review was undertaken twice on the same ISGBs, in 2017 and 2020, and the changes reviewed. The research highlights best practice policies for recommendation to all ISGBs, and illuminates the absence of adequate policies with regards to the risk of bribery in ISGBs. The findings show there was no area within the framework that ISGBs performed well at as a collective, and there was no single ISGB whose anti-bribery policies were strong in all areas. However, the comparison between 2017 and 2020 shows an improvement in ABC policies in some ISGBs over the timeframe analyzed. The implications are a need for sharing best practice in this area of governance, and providing global guidance on ABC policies for ISGBs to ensure integrity in the sector.

Introduction

Bribery in sport is not an uncommon phenomenon. From boxer Eupolos bribing fellow Olympic Games competitors in 388 BC (Spivey, 2012 ), to bookmakers bribing stable-boys to dope horses in the 1960s (Reid, 2014 ), to FIFA Executive Committee members being bribed to secure their votes (Blake and Calvert, 2015 ; Conn, 2018 ), sport is awash with examples of this form of corruption.

Bribery and corruption in international sport are rife, systemic, widespread, and linked to stakeholders from athletes to sponsors, although the governance side of the game has gained most attention. For example, FIFA's 2015 governance corruption scandal led to most of their Executive Committee indicted in the US or sanctioned internally (Conn, 2018 ).

Bribery damages the integrity and image of sport (Gorse and Chadwick, 2010 ; Kihl et al., 2017 ) and undermines efficiency and growth within the industry (Azfar et al., 2001 ). Despite continuing vulnerability to this form of corruption, there is limited literature on how International Sports Governing Bodies (“ISGBs”) tackle bribery through the use of anti-bribery and corruption (“ABC”) corporate governance and ethics policies.

There are also no global, functional best practice guidelines available for implementation by sport organizations (Michie and Oughton, 2005 ), although some countries have created their own, linked to public funding availability (Australian Sports Commission, 2015 , 2020 ; Sport England UK Sport, 2016 ). The UN ( 2017 ) has also issued guidance on ABC measures for countries tackling corruption in sport. ABC policies are required to ensure that ISGBs can be held to account, and clear policies allow for sanctions against breaches. Absence of adequate policies therefore affects propensity for corruption, although benchmarking of individual ISGB's ABC governance is outside the scope of this paper.

Challenges faced by the sport industry in designing and implementing ABC policies include different structures and hierarchies within ISGBs (Chappelet and Mrkonjic, 2013 ; Pielke, 2016 ; Gardiner et al., 2017 ), lack of awareness of governance problems leading to conflict of interest and fraud (Brooks et al., 2013 ; Kirkeby, 2016 ), and ability to indulge in regulatory arbitrage for country of incorporation (Geeraert et al., 2014 ; Pielke, 2016 ). For example, the 2015 FIFA scandal was linked to problems with structure of both ISGB and member federations (Tighe and Rowan, 2020 ), conflicts of interest (Blake and Calvert, 2015 ), and the protection that Swiss company law previously afforded ISGBs (Associated Press, 2014 ).

As ISGBs are the regulators of their sport, an evaluation of their ABC policies is required to understand the problem, and provide best policy recommendations to other ISGBs. This paper's research aim is an exploratory qualitative evaluation of ABC policies of ISGBs with regards to policy content and language. This is done against the anti-bribery framework developed by Philippou ( 2019 ) for assessing ABC policies based on interdisciplinary corruption research. The intention is to highlight best practice policies (and those missing) within this framework currently adopted by some ISGBs, and outline issues raised on the risk of bribery in ISGBs as a group.

This paper's contribution to knowledge is a critical review of the diverse current ISGB anti-corruption governance policies for the prevention of bribery.

The next section of this paper argues that corporate governance policies are applicable to ISGBs, then provides an overview of ABC literature, followed by a section that outlines the framework used and method employed in the assessment of ABC policies, and a discussion of the results by framework element.

Corporate Governance and Sport

The European Sports Charter states that “voluntary sports organizations have the right to establish autonomous decision-making processes within the law” (Council of Europe, 2001 , Article 3.3). While autonomy has led to self-regulation (Forster and Pope, 2004 ; Forster, 2006 ; Chappelet, 2016 ), some researchers have argued that ISGBs are indeed corporations despite this status (Szymanski and Kuypers, 2000 ; Barker, 2013 ). Smith and Stewart ( 2010 ) noted that the unique features of the sport industry have diminished since the 1990s from ten (Stewart and Smith, 1999 ) to four, including having legally allowable monopolistic and/or oligopolistic structures, supporting corporate governance policy applicability to sports organizations.

Governance provides solutions to issues identified by agency theory (Jensen and Meckling, 1976 ) as applied to sport. Agency problems can be caused by separation (Berle and Means, 1930 ) between principals (resource allocators and stakeholders such as fans and athletes) and agents (managers of these resources, such as ISGBs).

ISGBs have developed into large revenue-takers and increased their visibility (PWC, 2011 , 2016 ; Gardiner et al., 2017 ).

Corporate governance of ISGBs is thus increasingly important to governments and policy-makers. Political bodies such as the Council of Europe now regard sport governance as a key issue; they approved the 2013 Berlin Declaration calling for the sport industry's engagement with corporate governance issues (Geeraert, 2016 ; Gardiner et al., 2017 ) and adopted the Good Football Governance Resolution (Council of Europe, 2018 ).

Given the autonomy principle, with sport given special dispensation under law (Council of Europe, 2001 ), it should be unsurprising that ISGBs are different in their governance and board structure when compared to other corporate organizations, particularly with regards to lack of accountability,. This is especially so when those charged with governance are uninterested, unaware, and/or unable to recognize corruption (Brooks et al., 2013 ; Kirkeby, 2016 ).

Proposed solutions to corporate governance problems (and links to corruption) faced by ISGBs put forward by researchers and policy-makers include:

• benchmarking (Geeraert, 2016 ) and reporting on corporate governance measures (Chappelet and Mrkonjic, 2013 );
• accountability for members' actions, including controls over receipt and use of funds (Ionescu, 2015 ; Pielke, 2016 );
• improving transparency, including disclosure of senior management salaries, and procurement methods (Geeraert et al., 2013 ; Maennig, 2016 ; Menary, 2016 ; Transparency International, 2016 ); and
• providing examples of good governance for other sports governing bodies to follow (Pedersen, 2016 ) through a best practice code (Michie and Oughton, 2005 ; Pielke, 2016 ).

Researchers have attempted to develop benchmarking tools for assessing the strength of corporate governance structures in sport organizations (not necessarily ISGBs). However, if autonomy and self-regulation are indeed part of the reason for poor governance across the sporting industry, then comparisons with peer organizations would be of limited value as an ABC tool. The Action for Good Governance in International Sport 's (“AGGIS”) benchmarking tool targeted the areas of transparency, and checks and balances. Both transparency and accountability linked to checks and balances are frequently used controls in the ABC sphere (Solomon, 2013 , pp. 151–190) and are covered later in this paper.

Chappelet and Mrkonjic ( 2013 ) composed a set of indicators for measuring corruption in sports governing bodies, including organizational and reporting transparency, control mechanisms, and sport integrity, which overlap with the ABC framework (Philippou, 2019 ) used in this paper. Other benchmarking that has been applied to sport governance includes Play The Game's National Sports Governance Observer (Geeraert, 2018 ; Alm, 2019 ). There was, however, no explicit coverage of anti-bribery measures within the benchmarking assessments, and this is a suggested area for further research.

Limited research exists on ABC elements within sport governance. One example includes Pielke ( 2016 ), who assessed the conflict of interest and other ABC measures at FIFA against a framework of accountability mechanisms (including legal, market, peer, and public reputational accountability), but not stakeholder accountability. Over the same period, FIFA did well in the AGGIS benchmarking, coming second in the list of 35 Olympic sports federations (Geeraert, 2015 ).

The methods noted above have been rarely adopted with an emphasis on ABC, although attempts to increase transparency across a number of organizations has taken place over time, and there is limited research into ABC corporate governance applications for ISGBs. This paper aims to begin the process of addressing this paucity of knowledge by analyzing best practice as a first step toward an ABC best practice code in line with Michie and Oughton ( 2005 ) and Pielke ( 2016 ).

Like corruption (Ashforth and Anand, 2003 ; Den Nieuwenboer and Kaptein, 2008 ; Gorse and Chadwick, 2010 ; Rose, 2017 ), bribery encompasses an array of definitional issues and is affected by public sector literature bias. This may be in part due to the sense in which sport is a public good even if the bodies running it are not.

ISGBs are, usually, privately incorporated associations, in which corruption is often internal to organizations (vote-rigging, fraud, match-fixing), although senior executives have held public office alongside their ISGB roles. One notable exception is the hosting, by countries, of major sporting events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. For these events, government-provided infrastructure and entertaining of ISGB members by public officials is often required, and external bribes and procurement fraud may occur (Dorsey, 2015 ).

Bribery can be defined as the “offering, promising, giving, accepting or soliciting of an advantage as an inducement for an action which is illegal, unethical or a breach of trust” (Transparency International, 2017b ). This definition is broader than public-sector definitions (such as that of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (Sarbanes-Oxley, 2002 ) in the US), despite raising perspective issues through not defining the terms “ethics” and “breach of trust,” and is therefore the one used in this paper.

There are limited empirical studies on bribery. Hanousek and Kochanova ( 2016 ) found “local bribery environments” affected firm performance in European countries, although the focus was on public-sector officials. Rodrigues-Neto ( 2014 ) modeled different forms of bribery to show that where monetary bribes are paid, bargaining power of bribe-payers is relatively small. Other works focus on detection or bribery within the framework of corruption (see, for example, Ryvkin et al., 2017 ) or on problems associated with bribery from a business perspective (Bray, 2007 ; Transparency International, 2011 ). These latter studies are based on perception, measuring beliefs rather than quantity (Sampford, 2006 ; Brooks et al., 2013 ). This paper analyses ABC policies rather than quality or quantity of bribery incidences, although perception does play a part in reputational damage suffered by companies as a result of corruption.

Theoretical Framework

There is a limited range of theoretical frameworks available for critical evaluation of ABC policies. One such example is De Waegeneer et al. ( 2016 ), who created a classification framework for content analysis of ISGBs' ethical codes' effectiveness. This included thematic and procedural classifications of content, both of which are relevant to general governance policies, but not explicitly concerned with ISGBs. Another is the TASP sport corruption typology of Masters ( 2015 ), which can be applied explicitly to instances of corruption in sport or framing specific scandals within ISGBs.

Svensson ( 2005 ) describes corruption as an outcome ‘of a country's legal, economic, cultural and political institutions'. Bribery, in turn, is an outcome of a number of similar variables, both thematic and procedural, which need to be addressed in an ABC policy.

Philippou ( 2019 ) sets out a theoretical framework for bribery in sport governance. The framework ( Figure 1 ) is split into three parts: clarifying concepts (such as definitions of corruption and bribery employed), assessing risk factors (economic rent, discretionary powers, and culture), and assessing governance (accountability, monitoring/control systems, and enforcement). As this framework is explicitly concerned with ABC in sport governance, and its production based on an amalgamation of interdisciplinary ABC research, this is the framework used in this paper. Its elements and the relevant literature are discussed below.

Theoretical framework for bribery and ABC. Adapted from Philippou ( 2019 ).

Clarifying Concepts: Definitions

The global scope and activities of ISGBs makes them subject to varied ABC legislation and regulations, which internal policies and codes need to comply with. The ISGBs' ability to take advantage of regulatory arbitrage (such as the ICC's move from the UK to Dubai in 2005) affects the policies and procedures required and therefore enacted.

The US FCPA's (1977, §78dd-3) definition of bribery requires involvement of a public official (UK Government, 2010 ). The UK Bribery Act 2010 has a much broader definition of bribery, covering private sector bribery (and therefore ISGB officials), passive as well as active bribery (both giving and receiving a bribe), and facilitating payments. Facilitating payments are inducements given to officials to perform routine business transactions in their (legal) job. Facilitating payments are allowable under the FCPA (Baughn et al., 2010 ), although enforcement has tightened up in recent years.

ISGBs could potentially be affected by public-sector facilitating payment definitions during sport event management and related procurement activities, or during broadcast rights negotiations. ISGBs could also be affected by private-sector bribery in, for example, requesting support in the form of votes in exchange for allocating funds to specific development programs.

Given the reputational risk from being embroiled in a bribery scandal (Gorse and Chadwick, 2010 ), ISGBs should also include unactioned (agreed but not acted upon) bribery in their definitions. This is because mere agreement to conduct bribery could still damage the ISGB's reputation, as is the case with the unproven allegations of match-fixing in tennis (Mitchell, 2016 ; see, for example, Blake, 2016 ). By extension, when these practices become endemic to the culture, it's woven into the fabric of the sport, as was the case with the cultural problems experienced by the Australian cricket team (Lemon, 2018 ).

Assessing Risk Factors

Economic rent.

Policy-driven corruption theory is steeped in the tradition of Klitgaard's ( 1988 ) formula and Rose-Ackerman's ( 1999 ) framework, both of which attempt to understand (and reverse) the causes of corruption. Both are limited to public-sector corruption [although Klitgaard ( 1988 , 1998b ) does acknowledge the existence of private-sector bribery]. As bribery is a subset of corruption, both include economic rent in their respective theoretical frameworks affecting ABC.

Economic rent is the concept of monopoly profit; it is an unsustainable pricing level in the presence of competition (Ricardo, 1821 ; Krueger, 1974 ). Alberto Ades and Rafael Di Tella ( 1999 ) found that countries whose firms benefit from higher levels of economic rent are more prone to corruption. Clarke and Xu's ( 2004 ) regression analysis of bribery in the utility sector in transition economies also found economic rents to be a corrupting factor, and bribery more likely in areas with lower levels of competition and higher profitability.

ISGBs, by their very nature as global organizations, have monopoly power over their sport or (in the case of the IOC) event (Morgan, 2002 ). An exception to this is the oligopolistic structure of professional [as opposed to amateur and professional, which was governed by the AIBA ( 2018 ), despite their authority over Olympic events being rescinded by the IOC (IOC, 2019 ; Morgan, 2020 )] boxing governance, which includes four main ISGBs (the World Boxing Association, World Boxing Council, IBF/USBA, and the World Boxing Organization). However, this is still sufficiently limited to allow the ISGBs to extract economic rents from fans and other stakeholders of the sport.

Discretionary Powers

Discretionary powers of governance officials affect levels of corruption (Klitgaard, 1988 ; Rose-Ackerman, 1999 ; Jain, 2001 ). Autonomy enjoyed by sport governing bodies under law (Geeraert et al., 2014 , 2015 ; Chappelet, 2016 ) increase the levels of discretionary powers that governance officials have over their sport.

Clearly defining bribery affects behavior (Steidlmeier, 1999 ; Transparency International, 2013a , Article 5.6.1). Cultural attitudes to bribes affect tendency to both pay (Pitt and Abratt, 1986 ) and receive (Lambsdorff and Frank, 2010 ) bribes. Thus, care must be taken where “there are deep-rooted customs regarding gifts and hospitality” (Transparency International, 2017a , Article 6.7), as well as other risk areas, as a result of the global coverage of ISGBs.

Gifts and entertainment (or hospitality) is an important area of ABC (Transparency International, 2013a , 2017a ), and forms part of cultural control. The need for gifts and entertainment in ISGBs should be assessed as part of risk. There is also a need to provide guidance on appropriate (sometimes zero) levels above which receipts or donations could be construed as bribery. For example, the UK Bribery Act 2010 [in contrast to the US FCPA (1977)] makes no exemption for business promotion, so marketing and entertainment (if the intention is corrupt) fall within the scope of the Act regardless of value.

Assessing Governance

Accountability.

The increase in the role of the media (especially through investigative journalism) has fuelled strong public demand for ISGB accountability to stakeholders, including fans and taxpayers (Ionescu, 2015 ). Conversely, it has been argued that the media has facilitated corruption through biased positive reporting of unethical sporting behavior (Whannel, 2002 , pp. 290–292; Numerato, 2009 ), such as hailing cheats as national heroes if a country has won a major sporting event despite corrupt behavior.

Transparency as a concept is broader than accountability (defined below), and relates to clarity over the structure, funding, spending, and conduct of an organization through reporting “rules, plans, processes and actions” (Transparency International, 2017c ), although disclosure is an important aspect of transparency, such as that found in the likes of the UK Corporate Governance Code (FRC, 2016 ). Care, however, must be taken to avoid an “accountability-by-audit approach” (where transparency in process is merely a means to allow audit) (Henne, 2015 ), where generalist rules are not necessarily suitable for the industry.

Klitgaard ( 1988 ) and Rose-Ackerman ( 1999 ) correlate greater levels of administrator accountability to lower levels of corruption and, therefore, bribery. In the case of (mainly private company) ISGBs, it follows that, where there are no effective mechanisms to hold senior officers accountable for their actions, there are likely to be higher levels of bribery.

Accountability has been defined as holding organizations “responsible for reporting their activities and executing their powers properly” (Transparency International, 2017b ), or having actors hold others to a set of standards with sanctions available if these are breached (Stiglitz, 2003 ; Grant and Keohane, 2005 ). This includes clear lines of reporting for members, employees, and other stakeholders being available, usually defined in policies and procedures. Non controls (mainly policy) definitions of accountability focus on actions over liability, although there is confusion over the definition (Mcgrath and Whitty, 2018 ). Accountability was defined in the controls sense in this paper, as having a set of standards such as reporting on specific tasks, having named senior officers responsible for clearly identified specific tasks, and/or the organization or senior officers being explicitly responsible for particular functions or actions within an organization.

Transparency and accountability contribute to ABC as scrutiny of governance leads to lower levels of bribery. For example, Duggan and Levit (Duggan and Levitt, 2002 ) found that increased media attention decreased match-fixing in sumo wrestling.

Monitoring/Control

Monitoring is a form of resource control (Lipicer and Lajh, 2013 ) and can include the use of compliance functions or ethics audits (Mcnamee and Fleming, 2007 ).

Whistleblowing

One of the key methods of monitoring and control center around whistleblowing. Whistleblowing policies allow members to raise concerns about breaches of ethics, laws, and business standards, and enable monitoring and control. For example, the ACFE ( 2016 ) noted that “tips” was the most likely form of detection but that “organizations with reporting hotlines were much more likely to detect fraud through tips” than those without. The importance of whistleblowing is also recognized in Transparency International's (Transparency International, 2013a , Article 6.5;2017a, Article 9.2) ABC guidance, and increasingly by policy (see Sport Whistle, 2018 ) and sports organizations (Cottrell and Erickson, 2018 ).

The confidentiality and safety of whistleblowing hotlines is important for encouraging witnesses to come forward with information (Soon and Manning, 2017 ). This is recognized in various statutes worldwide, although cultural differences pervade. Transparency International's (Transparency International, 2013b , p. 8) review of the whistleblowing laws in the EU found only four countries (Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia, and the UK) had advanced provisions in their laws for “whistleblowers in the public and/or private sectors,” while seven had none or very limited provisions. The EU stance on whistleblower protection has since been enhanced with the advent of the Directive on the protection of persons reporting on breaches of Union law (European Parliament Council of the European Union, 2019 ). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Congress.Gov, 2002 , §1514A) in the US also penalizes retaliation against whistleblowers.

Enforcement

Even if whistleblowing policies exist, enforcement of witness protection and confidentiality rules and regulations increase the tendency for whistleblowers to come forward with information (ACFE, 2016 ). This enforcement ability also applies to all aspects of governance policy and procedure, as enforcement is, to a degree, positively correlated with adherence by individuals subject to it (Croall, 2004 ).

Investigatory and enforcement powers are linked to accountability, as ability to enforce decisions independently signals that those in breach of policies and procedures will be held accountable for doing so. (Geeraert et al., 2014 ) assessed the corporate governance quality in 35 Olympic sport governing bodies, including enforcement powers of the Ethics/Integrity Committees of their sample ISGBs. Only one (UCI) had the ability to initiate proceedings independently at the time.

From an economics perspective, Becker's ( 1968 ) rational choice theory was adapted to model public corruption utility choices in South Korea and Hong Kong (Jin-Wook, 2009 ). This approach was criticized for its simplicity, and was consequently updated by Nichols ( 2012 ) to include the ability to use the bribe in secret, perceived (rather than actual) risks of detection, and emotional and psychological costs of acting corruptly. It therefore helps explain why penalties (both criminal and social) form an important part of ABC strategy, as enforcement powers are needed to impose sanctions.

The anti-bribery framework developed by Philippou ( 2019 ) was used to critically evaluate the publically available ABC policies and procedures of 22 ISGBs (listed in Table 1 ). Assessing the ABC methods employed requires substantive disclosure evidence from the ISGBs on their internal organizational structures and policies employed. This is not always available, and differs from ISGB to ISGB.

Sampled sports and ISGBs.

In line with the concept of economic rent influencing corruption (Klitgaard, 1988 ), the sample of ISGBs used in this research were the largest. This conforms with findings by Maennig ( 2005 ), where only sports able to generate high income (and economic rents) were affected by corruption, although these findings may have been affected by selection bias in classifying “major documented cases” (p. 190). This approach is also consistent with the sample selection by Geeraert et al. ( 2014 ), and Gorse and Chadwick ( 2011 ) in their analyses of governance issues and corruption in sport respectively.

Arriving at a sample of the ISGBs with the largest revenues was hindered by some ISGBs not publishing their financial statements (covered in the transparency and accountability section below). Therefore, the list of profitability by sport is an incomplete one. The researchers proxied size to popularity, as defined by their visibility in the media and on terrestrial broadcasting in the largest sports markets (Chadwick, 2013 , p. 515; Geeraert et al., 2014 , 2015 ; PWC, 2016 ). Table 1 lists the sports sampled and their associated ISGBs. Note that the IOC was included (and referred to as an ISGB) in this paper because compliance with the IOC's regulations are the explicitly stated basis for many other ISGBs' policies.

All available documents on structure, governance, financial controls, integrity, and anti-corruption were downloaded from the sample ISGB websites in May 2017 and December 2020 and content analysis performed thereon. The analysis was performed on two dates to also assess ISGB progress with regards ABC policies.

Of the 22 ISGBs reviewed, one (IRB, 2017 , 2020 ) had no relevant documents available on their website (during either timeframe).

The diversity of information available, and the relevant conclusions drawn from this, is discussed in the section on transparency and accountability.

Thematic analysis was undertaken on the ISGB documents available following the approach set out by Braun and Clarke ( 2006 , 2016 ), followed by the thematic [based on the Philippou ( 2019 ) ABC framework] evaluation of the qualitative results (Stemler, 2001 ; Robson and Mccartan, 2016 ; p. 349). These 95 (in 2017) and additional 82 (in 2020) documents were reviewed and analyzed by the researchers, using NVivo qualitative data analysis software. The first stage of coding involved reviewing the policies within the documents. Themes were generated from an initial coding run to identify any themes related to anti-bribery and corruption. A second stage of coding was then conducted on the content identified, amalgamating any related codes (such as cash and monetary payments) and splitting any codes that required it (such as ABC). The codes were then compared to the framework and a final analysis was performed on the data to ensure both the themes arising from the data and framework concepts were covered in the analysis. The process was then repeated in 2020 with the additional/updated documents downloaded in December 2020.

Of the 22 ISGBs reviewed, 14 had an ABC policy of some description in place in 2017, while a third had none publicly available. In 2020, this was increased to 17 so that the absence of ABC policies was less common across the group. Eight ISGBs in 2017 and nine in 2020 had specific ABC policies, while others had included them within other documentation such as a Code of Conduct, Code of Ethics, or Constitution. This has implications for all elements of the assessing governance section of the anti-bribery framework, as lack of easy-to-find, clear-cut policies might limit the strength of the internal control system. It also supports the argument for increased need for staff training on the topic.

Another issue was the inconsistency within ISGBs' policies. An example of poor practice in the 2017 batch was the ITF's (a private registered UK company subject to the UK Bribery Act 2010) policy, which noted that “payment of facilitation payments by or on the behalf of the ITF is therefore only permitted if the following conditions are met …” (ITF, 2012 ). This implied that facilitation payments are acceptable under certain circumstances, although it then contradicts this in the same document by (correctly, for a company registered in the UK) defining facilitation payments as an example of non-permissible bribery (ITF, 2012 ). In the 2020 sample for coding, the Anti-Bribery and Corruption Code of Conduct had been replaced by two anti-corruption program documents (ITF, 2020a , b ), neither of which specifically referenced bribery. Bribery was instead referenced in the general anti-bribery and corruption clause in the ITF Code of Ethics (ITF, 2019 ).

Clarifying Concepts—Definitions

References coded to bribery and corruption themes included:

• Specific details on who is subject to the policy/procedure
• Specific anti match-fixing policy
• Definitions of bribery and corruption
• Examples of bribery and corruption

Who was subject to the policies differed across ISGBs sampled. All applied to officials (see, for example, IFAF, 2012 ; IIHF, 2014a ; World Rugby, 2017 ; Wbsc, n.d.) and/or athletes and their representatives (IIHF, 2014a ; WBC, 2015b ). Some had a very broad stakeholder scope, including “the cities and countries wishing to organize” competitions' (FIBA, 2014a ), or ‘Representatives of sponsors, partners, suppliers, ski industry and media dealing with FIS and/or have an involvement in FIS activities' (FIS, 2016b ). These present best practice solutions for corporate governance issues as put forward by Michie and Oughton ( 2005 ) and Pielke ( 2016 ). Some ISGBs specifically referred to stakeholders as a “family” (FIFA, 2012a ; IAAF, 2015 ), re-enforcing the idea of self-governing autonomy (Forster and Pope, 2004 ; Forster, 2006 ), but also potentially contrary to the independence ideals embedded in a culture of accountability and transparency (Geeraert, 2016 ; Maennig, 2016 ).

The ITF and FIA were the only two from the 2017 sample of ISGBs that defined the term bribery as “the offering, promising, giving, accepting or soliciting of an advantage (whether financial or otherwise) as an inducement for an action which is illegal or a breach of trust” (ITF, 2012 ), or the more specific “improperly influenc[ing] anyone, or … reward[ing] anyone for the performance of any function or activity, in order to secure or gain any commercial, contractual, regulatory or personal advantage” (FIA, 2017b ). In the 2020 sample, FIFA defined bribery as an “offer of anything valuable with the intent to gain an improper business advantage” (FIFA, 2020e ) and the IRL as “an inducement or reward offered or promised in order to gain any commercial or other advantage” (IRL, 2020a ). These are in line with the general definitions discussed previously ( 2002 ; Transparency International, 2017b ). The FIA further illustrate best practice by providing examples, including “the giving of aid or donations, the use of voting rights, designed to exert improper influence” (FIA, 2017b ).

Where references existed to bribery, the second round of coding for each batch determined if non-financial bribery was included (which is definitional-dependent). Non-financial bribery is defined in this paper as the exchange of something other than money in the course of the bribe, such as votes, personal or political favors, or role allocation within an organization. Non-financial bribery was defined in one of three ways in the sample, with some ISGBs incorporating more than one definition:

• “benefit or service of any nature” (see, for example, FIBA, 2014a ; IIHF, 2014a ; IGF, 2016b ; FIA, 2017b )
• pecuniary/ monetary or other benefit/advantage (FIFA, 2012b ; ITF, 2012 ; IAAF, 2015 ; FIS, 2016b )
• “concealed benefit” (see, for example, FIH, 2012 , n.d.; IOC, 2015a ; UCI, n.d.)

Non-financial bribery aligns with the “breach of trust” element of the Transparency International ( 2017b ) definition of bribery, and aligns with corruption seen in the 2015 FIFA scandal, where favors were allegedly swapped for votes (Conn, 2018 ).

The importance of reputational risk to ISGBs was noted, including references to “illegal, immoral and unethical behavior” (FIFA, 2012b ), “foster[ing] public confidence in … governance and administration” (ICC, 2014a ), “refrain[ing] from unethical behavior that may bring disgrace to many people involved in the sport” (WBC, 2015a ), and “not act[ing] in a manner likely to tarnish the reputation of the Olympic Movement” (IOC, 2020a ). IFAF summaries this as “Public confidence in the authenticity and integrity of the sporting contest and in the uncertainty of its outcome is vital. If that confidence is undermined, the very essence of the sport is compromised” (IFAF, 2017a ). These results support the narrative that integrity of sport is important to ISGBs.

It follows that ISGBs should therefore value ABC, given bribery's damaging nature to integrity (Gorse and Chadwick, 2010 ). In line with this, unactioned bribery should be covered in best practice ABC policies, and it was indeed covered by some ISGBs. For example, reference was made to breaches occurring “irrespective of whether such benefit is in fact given or received” (IGF, 2016a ). However, it could be argued that unactioned bribery is covered by the term “bringing the sport into disrepute” (see, for example, IFAF, 2017b ). The issue, from an enforcement perspective, is the breadth of the latter term may make it harder for investigators to prove compared to breaches of specifically referenced bribery, and thus best practice should include specifics.

Gifts and Entertainment

Documents were coded to the “gift and entertainment” theme if they provided guidance for accepting and/or providing gifts and entertainment to other parties.

Part of the difficulties faced by ISGBs is having to balance international compliance requirements against cultural problems (Pitt and Abratt, 1986 ) that may ensue in, for example, countries where it is considered rude to decline a host's gift or entertainment offers (Steidlmeier, 1999 ). This has led to some ISGBs providing generalist policies in their ABC efforts, such as “The hospitality shown to the members and staff … and the persons accompanying them shall not exceed the standards prevailing in the host country” (FIBA, 2014a ). This “reasonableness test,” whereby an assessment by members is required, suffers from the same self-regulation enforcement problems that ISGBs are facing with regards general governance (Geeraert et al., 2015 ; Chappelet, 2016 ). The FIA was the only ISGB in the sample to explicitly state that “the intention behind the gift should always be considered” (FIA, 2017b ).

In line with Transparency International's (Transparency International, 2013a ) ABC Principles, perception appears to matter to ISGBs. The ICC ( 2014a ) explicitly forbid gifts that “influence or appear to influence the recipient in the discharge of his official duties,” as do FIBA ( 2015 ) “in circumstances that the Participant might reasonably have expected could bring him or the sport into disrepute.” The FIA acknowledges the importance of transparency, in line with Nichols ( 2012 ), stating that a condition required of gifts is that they are “given openly, not secretly” (FIA, 2017b ), while FIFA (in the 2020 sample) “uses a standard process to register gifts and hospitality and expects every FIFA team member to follow it” (FIFA, 2020d ).

Other best practice approaches were adopted by ISGBs. ISGBs referenced gifts of a nominal, trivial, and/or symbolic value only as being acceptable (see, for example, FIH, 2012 ; IIHF, 2014a ; FIFA, 2020f ; UCI, n.d.), although arguably this also requires a degree of reasonableness to be applied. Some ISGBs explicitly prohibited the giving/receipt of “cash and cash equivalents” (FIFA, 2012b ; ITF, 2012 ; ICC, 2014a ; IAAF, 2015 ; FIA, 2017b ; IFAF, 2017b ) or “cash in any amount or form” (FIFA, 2020f ). Few ISGBs specified amounts above which gifts and entertainment were considered unacceptable (ICC, 2014a , b ; IFAF, 2017b ). Aside from providing the basis for ABC financial controls, these policies also provide increased accountability for members” actions (Ionescu, 2015 ; Pielke, 2016 ).

Specific circumstances are also considered when forming a gifts and entertainment anti-bribery policy. For example, bribery linked to vote-rigging is explicitly considered in relation to IOC presidential elections: “Candidates may in no case and under no pretext give presents, offer donations or gifts or grant advantages of whatever nature” (IOC, 2015a ). IFAF considers procurement in its policy noting that “Particular care must be taken in relation to gifts offered by suppliers, other commercial partners and interested parties to influence decisions relating to the awarding of commercial contracts with IFAF, particularly for media rights, events and sponsorship” (IFAF, 2017b ).

Finally, consideration of what to do with gifts that have already been accepted is outlined. For example, the IOC policy that gifts ineligible for acceptance “must be passed on to the organization of which the beneficiary is a member” (IOC, 2015a , 2020a ) is also found in other ISGBs (FIBA, 2014a ; IGF, 2016c ; FIA, 2017b ). While setting out parameters for accountability (Geeraert et al., 2013 ; Maennig, 2016 ; Menary, 2016 ), this still presents a problem of what should be done subsequent to this. For example, following the Brazilian Football Association's distribution of Parmigiani watches to FIFA officials, the investigatory chamber decided against formal ethics proceedings “should all watches be returned to it. The watches will then be donated to an independent non-profit organization or organizations committed to corporate social responsibility projects in Brazil” (FIFA, 2017a ).

Assessing Governance Factors

Governance aims.

Although forming part of the sport industry typology, differences in the ISGBs' aims may explain the lack of consistency in policies and procedures. For example, most ISGBs in the sample included both promoting/developing and setting the laws of their sport in their mission statements or equivalents. All ISGBs in the sample were hierarchical (Morgan, 2002 ) in their governance, and the ISGBs did indeed present a different approach to corporate governance compared to other charitable or corporate organizations, with a clear industry-specific focus. For example, the Olympic Charter (the statutes of the IOC), that a large number of ISGBs are signatories of, includes “preserv[ing] the autonomy of sport” (IOC, 2015b , 2020b ) in its mission.

In other areas, however, this commonality in aims diverges, with some ISGBs having non-standard aims. The ISGB aims not explicitly shared across the sample include “deliver[ing] commercial value” (RLIF, 2017 ), providing “editorial services to … publications” (IRB, 2017 ), and “upholding the interests of its members in … tourism” (FIA, 2017c ).

Aims are also likely to be influenced by their income sources. For example, the majority of FIFA's 2016 income came from licensing rights to third parties (FIFA, 2017b ) compared to World Rugby ( 2016 ) from merchandising (directly from fans). This has implications for both conflict of interest (Brooks, 2016 ; Kirkeby, 2016 ) and regulatory arbitrage (Pielke, 2016 ). Both these ISGBs then saw the majority of their income come from broadcasting in 2019 (FIFA, 2020a ; World Rugby, 2020b ), a change that also has similar implications.

Some ISGBs govern over leagues with sufficient (usually economic) power to provide them with a voice in their own governance. For example, Formula 1 (FIA, 2017c , 2020b ) and the NBA (FIBA, 2014b , 2019 ) have representation on decision-making committees in their relevant sport, as manifested in their statutes which may affect implementation of best practice (either positively or negatively).

In a similar way, the power of certain countries are also manifested in statutes of relevant ISGBs. For example, World Rugby representatives on the Council have a vote specifically allocated to “Unions … who play in … the Six Nations or SANZAR Rugby Championships” (World Rugby, 2017 ).

Despite this diversity, most ISGBs note the importance of integrity and reputation, supporting Gorse and Chadwick ( 2010 ). For example, FIFA and the UCI both aim “to promote integrity, ethics and fair play with a view to preventing all methods or practices, such as corruption, … which might jeopardize the integrity of” the sport (FIFA, 2016 ; UCI, 2016 ) and the WBC ( 2015a ) to promote “Clean, Fair, and Equitable Competition.” Thus, this makes the existence of ABC policies both advisable and desirable within their own stated aims.

Transparency and Accountability

Transparency is proxied as public availability of information. One of the ISGBs reviewed had no relevant documents available on their website, although they did have some very limited information relating to aims and contacts (IRB, 2017 ), and so were included in the analysis.

References demonstrating best practice accountability and transparency are set out in Table 2 .

Examples of best practice accountability and transparency policies.

Overall, the levels of ISGB accountability were inconsistent both within and across ISGBs, as was the type of accountability demonstrated. For example, the RLIF ( 2017 ) did not include any of the above points in the 2017 sample, but did note the need for “communicating openly and transparently.” In the 2020 sample, they noted that “An up-to-date register of interests will be maintained by the IRL” (IRL, 2020b ), although the document did not specify individual roles accountable for this maintenance or review of potential conflicts. No single ISGB included information on all the points in Table 2 . These findings are consistent with previous studies on ISGB accountability (Chappelet and Mrkonjic, 2013 ; Geeraert et al., 2013 ; Geeraert, 2016 ) and demonstrate the continued need for accountability in best practice ABC.

Some of the ISGBs published the names of the various committee members, often on their websites, or noted that they ‘shall be published' (FIS, 2016b ), but were not available on the website in the 2017 or 2020 reviews. ISGBs also noted specific responsibilities attached to roles, such as “the Chief Administrative Officer shall … see that FIA accounts are kept up to date” (FIA, 2017d , 2019 ). Some ISGBs also noted specific powers attached to roles, such as “the Central Board has the powers … to exercise overall control over the financial management” of FIBA ( 2014b ; 2019 ). The latter finding showcases the officers' discretionary powers in a transparent way, which is a positive step toward minimizing corruption (Klitgaard, 1998a ; Rose-Ackerman, 1999 ; Jain, 2001 ).

Some ISGBs made particular reference to accountability and transparency in their documents. Examples include the “basic universal principles of good governance of the Olympic and sports movement, in particular transparency, responsibility and accountability, must be respected” (FIH, 2012 ), that “all bodies, whether elected or appointed, shall be accountable to the members of the organization and, in certain cases, to their stakeholders” (IOC, 2015a , 2020a ), and to “seek transparency and strive to maintain a good compliance culture with checks and balances” (FIFA, 2012a ). In the 2020 sample, it was noted that “One of the fundamental pillars of FIFA 2.0 is the transparency of the organization, its governance and the decision-making process” (FIFA, 2019 ).

References to whistleblowing in the sample were scarce in the 2017 sample. The ITF ( 2012 ) noted that a policy exists, but as this was only internally available from the “HR department or in [the] HR shared files,” its contents could not be reviewed by the researchers. The WBSC made reference to whistleblowing in case of actual or “probable cause to believe” (Wbsc, n.d.) a breach has occurred, but no system to do so was set out in their documents.

Direct references to reporting hotlines in ISGB documents, something highly important for monitoring (Transparency International, 2013a , 2017a ; ACFE, 2016 ), was also scarce in the 2017 sample. Some referenced their own (IOC, 2015a ; IGF, 2016a , 2017a ; FIFA, 2017a , c ; UCI, 2017 ), and one asked their members to use the IOC's Integrity and Compliance hotline (FIS, 2016a ). Of those with their own hotlines, one related solely to doping (UCI, 2017 ) and therefore cannot be considered as part of general ABC policy. Only the IOC had a clear and easy-to-find hotline if one followed the documented references. The IGF hotline was unavailable from the link listed in their Anti-betting and Corruption Policy (IGF, 2016a ) when the researchers attempted to access the link in both March and December 2017, but was available from a different URL (IGF, 2017b ) after a brief search on the IGF website. Difficulties were also experienced with the FIFA hotline. While FIFA documents made reference to a hotline being set up (FIFA, 2017a ) and monitored (FIFA, 2017c ), the researchers were unable to find a direct link to this from the FIFA website as at both March and December 2017, although they found the link to FIFA's hotline clearly referenced on, and accessible from, the IOC's website ( 2017 ). These findings are in line with the whistleblowing shortcomings discussed by Cottrell and Erickson ( 2018 ), and the alleged treatment of whistleblowers by FIFA in the 2015 scandal (Conn, 2018 ).

The 2020 sample shows that there has been some improvement across ISGBs on this front, with integrity hotlines available across a number of ISGBs (ICC, 2020 ; TIU, 2020 ; World Rugby, 2020a ; see, for example, FIS, 2020 ). IFAF has a whistleblower policy document available on their corporate documents webpage (IFAF, 2017c ), although there was no other reference to this. The IGF has a dedicated hotline section (IGF, 2020a ), although the link to their Anti-betting and Corruption Policy (IGF, 2020c ) did not work as at December 2020 and there was potential for conflict of interest as ‘The Head of the IGF Integrity Unit is … the person in charge of the IGF Integrity Hotline and is skilled at providing impartial and confidential support to the person reporting” (IGF, 2020b ). FIFA resolved their issue for the 2020 sample and had multiple references to their confidential reporting system (FIFA, 2020b ), although their Code of Conduct had nine references to report or contact the FIFA Compliance Division but no links to this or how to do this in the document (FIFA, 2020d ). World Athletics now has the independent Athletics Integrity Unit's reporting system available (Athletics Integrity Unit, 2020 ).

There were also limited references to best practice protection of whistleblowers' and/or witnesses' identity in policy breach proceedings to encourage the practice (Soon and Manning, 2017 ). The IOC ( 2015a ) noted that “A complainant may request that his/her identity not be revealed and that all precautions be taken so that his/her identity is protected,” while the UCI (n.d.) noted that they “shall take all required measures in order to safeguard the interests and personal rights of witnesses and, if necessary, ensure they remain unidentified.” However, the most detailed policy around the anonymity of witnesses was that of FIFA: “When a person's testimony … could endanger his life or put him or his family or close friends in physical danger, the chairman of the competent chamber or his deputy have powers to maintain confidentiality” (FIFA, 2012b ).

The ITF ( 2012 ) specifically mentioned culture, wishing to “encourage … individuals [to] feel able to raise concerns” and “strictly prohibits the taking of retaliatory action” and in the 2020 sample had set up a new integrity body (TIU, 2020 ). Other ISGBs with explicit policies on retaliation against whistleblowers (like those stipulated by laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley in the US and the EU Whistleblowing Directive) included the IGF ( 2017a , 2020d ), which “provide protection against any unjustified treatment in the form of providing confidential advice to whistle-blowers… If physical protection is needed, the case is referred to the police” and FIFA ( 2012b , 2020f ).

This paper's review of enforcement powers of the Ethics/Integrity Committees found that both samples showed very low levels of ISGB Ethics/Integrity Committees with investigatory and disciplinary powers. While most had the power to request information from individuals subject to the ISGB rules and regulations, a small minority had the power to instigate their own investigations. One that did was the IAAF Ethics Commission in the 2017 sample which could work on matters that it “of its own initiative considers to be appropriate for it to undertake” (IAAF, 2015 ). The 2020 sample showed that a number of the ISGBs had set up independent integrity units (Athletics Integrity Unit, 2020 ; TIU, 2020 ).

Even fewer ISGBs had the power to sanction, an important element of ABC to encourage compliance (Croall, 2004 ). For example, the ICC ( 2014a ) “Ethics Officer … submit[ing] his written report to the … Board for its ultimate determination on what action, if any, should be taken in respect of the alleged violation” takes the power away from the investigator and puts it into the hands of non-independent officers. This was replaced in the 2020 sample with “the Ethics Officer will refer the matter to the Ethics Disciplinary Committee, which shall normally be comprised of the Chief Executive, the ICC Chairman and the Chair of the Audit Committee” unless it “decides that a greater sanction than a warning and/or reprimand is warranted,” in which case it “shall refer the matter to the Ethics Tribunal” (ICC, 2017 ). Similarly, the FIBA Ethics Council should “submit to the FIBA Central Board a report … noting any breaches of its rules … [and] will propose … sanctions which might be taken against those responsible” (FIBA, 2014a ), but not impose those sanctions itself.

Committees” independence (to enable accountability and limit abuse of powers) was also low. However, definitions of independence were not clarified which, given the extent of conflict of interest issues found in sport as highlighted in this paper, should be treated with caution. Sometimes independence is implied but not explicit, such as for “The FIS Ethics Commission [which] is composed of five persons appointed by the FIS Council; three/four external to FIS and one/two members of the FIS Council” (FIS, 2016b ). This also links in with the idea of discretionary powers (Klitgaard, 1988 ).

Enforcement powers for decisions were rare. Instead, many of the ISGB Ethics Committees had the remit to investigate but not sanction, such as in the case of the FIA ( 2017b , 2020a ), where the Ethics Committee “shall submit a report to the President … who may decide to take further action.” Inability to sanction limits the value of the policies (Croall, 2004 ).

Sometimes there was no clear enforcer defined, which is also problematic from an accountability viewpoint. For example, FIFA ( 2012b ) Code of Ethics notes that commissions “are forbidden … unless the applicable body has expressly permitted them to do so'. The applicable body in question is not defined in this case, nor is an individual or official role named as the decision-maker. This restricts decision-making ability (and therefore accountability), but also arguably provides officials within FIFA and member associations with discretionary powers, something also linked to increased bribery (Klitgaard, 1988 ).

Some ISGBs publically list violations or decisions. For example, FIBA ( 2015 ) “maintains a list of violations and sanctions which is made available on the FIBA website,” while FIFA ( 2017a , 2020c ) publishes Ethics Committee matters and sanctions. This is a positive step toward transparency (Maennig, 2005 ; Geeraert et al., 2013 ).

There was evident progress in the amount and quality of ABC material provided by ISGBs between the two sample periods (see Table 3 ), FIFA and the ITF in particular. Aside from illustrating some ISGBs' growing commitment to transparency and accountability, this also supports Ionescu ( 2015 ) research on the role of the media in increasing accountability, as these changes were likely brought in as a result of media scrutiny (Ingle, 2017 ).

Key policy improvements 2017–2020.

This paper critically reviewed governance policies for the prevention of bribery in a sample of 22 ISGBs using the anti-bribery framework developed by Philippou ( 2019 ). The diversity of both the quantity and quality of information on corporate governance and/or ABC policies is part of the problem that needs to be addressed by future guidance. It is difficult for members and stakeholders to know where to look for ABC information, as this is distributed among statutes, codes of ethics, codes of conduct, or other documents. Future quantitative research can be undertaken to assess policy frequency and distribution.

Qualitative examples of both good and poor practice currently followed by some ISGBs were highlighted across both periods and are summarized in Table 4 . There was no single area of the framework that ISGBs performed well at as a collective, and there was no single ISGB whose ABC policies were strong across all areas. A recommended subject for further research is whether particular characteristics of ISGBs positively affect particular aspects of their governance and ABC procedures.

Examples of good practice.

There are limitations of using publically available information for this study, as the information may be incomplete. However, this also reflects the lack of transparency and accountability of the ISGBs in question, and arguably contributes to the likelihood of bribery by those charged with governance (Klitgaard, 1988 ) of sport.

In terms of clarifying concepts (Philippou, 2019 ), clear ABC policies on their websites, defining bribery, or including unactioned bribery (which would affect reputation), were few, and there were a number of inconsistencies within ISGBs' own policies. Thus, ISGBs should focus on clarity and consistency when strengthening their ABC policies, starting with defining what it is that they expect their members and stakeholders to avoid.

Governance structures found supported the applicability of corporate governance ABC policies to ISGBs, in line with Smith and Stewart ( 2010 ) paper on the sport industry's declining uniqueness. Governance aims of the sample ISGBs converged with regards the importance of integrity, supporting research on risks arising from a lack of integrity (Gorse and Chadwick, 2010 ). This shows the importance of industry reform in line with other industries, as opposed to an introverted outlook often adopted by sport organizations.

Accountability was deemed important by ISGBs in their documents, but no single ISGB included full information on roles, conflicts, personnel responsible, and so on, while one ISGB had no documents available at all. This paucity in transparency was in line with findings by Geeraert et al. ( 2014 ) and is another focus for IGBS looking to undertake reform of their governance and ABC policies and procedures.

Clear gifts and entertainment policies existed, but only one specified a maximum acceptable level of spend. Given the number of reputation-afflicting scandals linked to gifts and entertainment, and the cultural shift away from these as a method of doing business, focus on these policies would enhance the current ABC provisions in ISGBs.

The majority of monitoring and control (Philippou, 2019 ) references related to whistleblowing. These were, on the whole, scarce, with some ISGBs making reference to reporting hotlines, which can help identify breaches (ACFE, 2016 ), and a minority to protection of whistleblowers, which help more come forward (Soon and Manning, 2017 ).

Enforcement powers were low, thus limiting their effectiveness (Croall, 2004 ), without committees having the power to sanction, while a lack of independence in ISGBs sampled increases discretionary powers of governing officials and therefore the likelihood of bribery (Klitgaard, 1988 ).

There are, of course, limitations to generalizing the results of this study to all ISGBs. Each ISGB, as shown in this paper, caters to different stakeholders, has different aims, with different governance structures, and very diverse revenue streams and levels. However, this study also highlights why best practice needs to be tailored to the sport industry as a whole, and why ISGBs should share and act on good practice (such as the examples provided by Interpol ( 2020 ) on their bi-weekly bulletins, or ESSA ( 2017 ).

Most importantly in terms of the practical application of this research for best practice, the existence of robust ABC policies and procedures still requires adherence to and enforcement of these principles. For example, FIFA came under criticism in 2017 for not renewing the independent Ethics Committee's terms, thereby damaging ongoing internal investigations into corruption (Conn, 2017a , b ).

The need therefore remains for sharing best practice, and providing guidance on, ABC policies for ISGBs, via the IOC or external enforcement organizations such as UNODC ( 2018 ) or stakeholder pressure groups such as SIGA ( 2017 ). Future research should engage with stakeholders and ABC practitioners to create a practical and realistic blueprint for best practice in the sport industry and beyond (Michie and Oughton, 2005 ; Pedersen, 2016 ; Pielke, 2016 ). This could be done through interviews or focus groups with ABC professionals, sport governance officers, legal personnel, and stakeholders to analyze perceptions of corruption and ABC in ISGBs against the Philippou ( 2019 ) and/or the Masters ( 2015 ) frameworks. This can be complimented with research ranking ISGBs by expanding Geeraert's ( 2018 ) system to include ABC, and to benchmark the ISGBs sampled.

There is a need to fill the research gaps that exist in relation to both the incidence of bribery, and the fight to prevent it, including research around policy issues and requirements for robust ABC policies, in order to allow for “sport played and governed under the highest integrity standards, free from any form of unethical, illicit and criminal activity” (Siga, 2017 ).

Author Contributions

CP compiled the dataset and conducted the analysis of the data. CP was the senior author of the paper. TH is the second author. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Article Contents

1 introduction, 2 fifa and the ‘culture of corruption’, 3 new fifa, 4 for the game for the world, 5 conclusion.

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Whose Game? FIFA, Corruption and the Challenge of Global Governance

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Sahiba Gill, Edouard Adelus, Francisco de Abreu Duarte, Whose Game? FIFA, Corruption and the Challenge of Global Governance, European Journal of International Law , Volume 30, Issue 3, August 2019, Pages 1041–1066, https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chz054

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The present review essay provides an analysis of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) from the point of view of global governance. Through a review of five books on corruption in FIFA, written for a general audience, the essay describes FIFA as an institution of global governance in which several forms of corruption are widespread among its member organizations and confederations and within the FIFA leadership. This review essay uses the accounts of corruption in FIFA that these books provide to argue that corruption helps solve coordination problems in FIFA by coordinating divergent interests, allocating or distributing funds and allowing for a network of diverse and diffuse actors to fundamentally shape global football. The systemic use of bribing and the exchange of political favours and other means of informal allocation of power are more than mere spontaneous illegalities; they represent an informal, but systematic, means of governance in FIFA. We argue that the February 2016 FIFA reforms fell short of addressing this activity. The reviewed books all call for governing FIFA in the public interest, and the essay presents some pathways to reform and potential replacements for the use of corruption with the aim of returning the game to the general public.

The five books reviewed in this review essay are written for a general audience about the corruption in the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international governing body of football. They focus on the recent history of corruption in FIFA, including the 2010 vote for the 2018/2022 World Cups, which was mired in widespread accusations of corruption, and the USA’s May and December 2015 indictments of a total of 29 present and former FIFA officials for corruption in the organization including racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering, conducted through the US banking system. 1 These books are as useful for describing acts of corruption in FIFA as they are for beginning to analyse the underlying causes of this corruption through the lens of global governance.

Corruption has led FIFA into a protracted crisis that reached its peak from 2010 to 2015. In November 2010, FIFA officials and journalists alleged corruption in the host bids for the 2018/2022 World Cups, which had been scheduled for the following month. Immediately thereafter, two FIFA officials who were among the subjects of the allegations, Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii, were banned from the World Cup vote, which Russia and Qatar won against strong candidates such as the USA and England, furthering suspicion of misconduct. Barely six months passed before another scandal in May 2011, when Jack Warner (a FIFA Executive Committee member and then president of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football [Concacaf]) allegedly helped Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar (a FIFA Executive Committee member and then president of the Asian Football Confederation [AFC]) offer cash gifts worth US$40,000 each to members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), a group within Concacaf, just two weeks before bin Hammam was to run for FIFA president against incumbent Sepp Blatter, who had been elected in 1998. By July, FIFA had banned both Warner and bin Hammam from football for life. In the following years, FIFA attempted to establish accountability for alleged misconduct; the FIFA Ethics Committee, created in 2006 and reformed substantially in 2011, investigated the 2018/2022 World Cup host vote as well as new allegations from Concacaf Secretary General Chuck Blazer about a US $10 million bribe from South Africa to Warner and himself in exchange for a vote in favour of South Africa.

But, as the US arrests in May and December 2015 would reveal, FIFA had already been fundamentally compromised at its highest levels. Incumbent FIFA president Blatter was re-elected for his fifth term within weeks of the first US arrests in May on the strength of his popularity within FIFA, but due to the external pressure from the public for high-level accountability for the conduct leading to such arrests, Blatter nevertheless resigned. In 2016, the FIFA Ethics Committee banned Blatter from football for eight years (which was reduced to six years after appeal 2 ) for an improper payment of £1.35 million to Michel Platini, president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). Soon after, the Swiss authorities started investigating payments that Blatter made to himself and to two FIFA officials, which they had unilaterally approved for themselves as members of the Compensation Committee. Such high-level corruption in FIFA has roots that stretch back decades. The Concacaf and South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) sports marketing schemes that led to the US arrests date back to the 1990s. In 1974, when FIFA first began selling its own media rights to sports marketers, then FIFA president João Havelange was the leader who initiated these marketing schemes, beginning at the FIFA level; Concacaf and CONMEBOL leadership, including Havelange’s son-in-law, then replicated it in their respective confederations. Likewise, even if bin Hammam was caught for handing out envelopes of cash to CFU representatives in 2010 during his FIFA presidential candidacy, the practice was not new. The night before his first presidential election in 1998, Sepp Blatter allegedly delivered envelopes of cash to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) representatives in order to secure their votes the next day.

Accordingly, the books reviewed here cover the corruption in FIFA from its historical origins to the most recent scandal in order to capture the organization’s ‘culture of corruption’, a phrase the US Department of Justice used to indicate not only the scale of wrongful acts in FIFA but also the organizational impunity for them that has spanned decades. The Fall of the House of FIFA: The Multimillion-Dollar Corruption at the Heart of Global Soccer by David Conn and Football, Corruption and Lies: Revisiting ‘Badfellas’, the Book FIFA Tried to Ban by John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson document the ‘culture of corruption’ through each major era of modern FIFA history until the present day. Conn is a sports journalist covering football who writes primarily for the Guardian in the United Kingdom (UK), while Sugden and Tomlinson are sociologists whose book is a re-publication of their 2003 book Badfellas: FIFA Family at War , one of the first academic studies of corruption in FIFA. The Ugly Game: The Corruption of FIFA and the Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert and Whatever It Takes: The Inside Story of the FIFA Way by Bonita Mersiades both provide insider scoops on the 2018/2022 World Cup host votes. The Ugly Game is based on several thousand personal records of Mohamed bin Hammam that were anonymously leaked to the authors, who were journalists at the Sunday Times in the UK. Whatever It Takes was written by a member of the Australian 2018/2022 World Cup bid team about the bidding process in which she participated. Both books depict a strategy to win the World Cup bid that consisted of gifts and bribes by FIFA member associations, confederations and, in some cases, states. Finally, written in Portuguese by Brazilian journalist Jamil Chade, Politics, Bribes, and Football: How FIFA Standards Threaten the Most Popular Sport on the Planet focuses on the long legacy of corruption in Brazilian football. Despite its success on the football pitch, Brazilian football has been overrun with widespread corruption met with domestic and FIFA-level impunity, to which the public responded with mass protests before the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

For global governance, the ‘culture of corruption’ depicted in these books gained new significance when FIFA initiated governance reforms after the May 2015 US arrests. At the time, many observers were optimistic about FIFA’s ability to reform and placed hope for change in the new FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, who FIFA elected in an Extraordinary Congress in February 2016. At the same Extraordinary Congress, FIFA passed a slate of reforms by amending its constitutive document, the FIFA Statutes, a step that confirmed the high expectations of many. 3 But at its ordinary Congress just months later in May 2016, FIFA defanged its reforms significantly. The original February 2016 reforms had given hiring and firing power over members of the independent committees – a new Audit and Compliance Committee and Governance Committee, as well as the existing Ethics Committee – to the 211-member FIFA Congress, the legislative body of FIFA. This had been a significant improvement from the pre-2015 FIFA Statutes, which had required the members of the Ethics Committee to come from outside football but gave hiring and firing power over them to the highly political 25-member FIFA Executive Committee. But, at the ordinary FIFA Congress in May 2016, FIFA returned hiring and firing power over the members of the independent committees to a political body: the 37-member FIFA Council, which was the post-reform successor to the FIFA Executive Committee and was understood to be heavily under FIFA president Infantino’s control. Domenico Scala, chair of the Audit and Compliance Committee, resigned in response. At the next ordinary FIFA Congress in May 2017, FIFA ousted the chairman of the Governance Committee and the chairmen of the investigatory and adjudicatory chambers of the Ethics Committee, which prompted several other Governance Committee members to resign as well. 4

In the few months from February to May 2016 when the new independent committees had been insulated from political control, their members had clashed with Infantino on several issues. 5 Infantino wanted more than the two million Swiss francs that the Audit and Compliance Committee had recommended he be paid based on non-profit and corporate industry standards. The Ethics Committee was investigating Infantino for improperly accepting flights on private jets and for also improperly influencing the election of the president of CAF. Against the recommendations of the Governance Committee, Infantino had pushed for Vitaly Mutko, the Russian Football Union president, to be allowed to serve on the FIFA Council even though he simultaneously served as minister of sport of Russia and had been banned by the International Olympic Committee for having aided the Russian doping programme for the Olympics, both of which could be considered to have placed him in contravention of FIFA regulations.

By contrast, after they were brought under political control in May 2016, the independent committees took decisions that aligned with the preferences of FIFA’s leadership. The Ethics Committee cleared Infantino of wrongdoing in August 2016. FIFA retained Mutko on the FIFA Council until March 2017; when the Governance Committee blocked his re-election, FIFA replaced the committee leadership, as discussed above. The striking reversals indicated that the FIFA leadership had retained significant power to avoid decisions with which it disagreed. Though the governance reforms had been in the public interest, FIFA, nevertheless, had been able to undo them because FIFA’s governance structure did not guarantee the global football-watching public a voice in decision-making, and reputational harm no longer appeared to be a threat that would prompt FIFA to act in the public interest.

How FIFA should be governed is directly addressed in the books under review, each of which conclude in their closing chapters that football should be governed in the global public interest. As several of the books note, when international football competition began, amateur ideals of fair play and sportsmanship governed the pitch. As FIFA began to pursue advertising partnerships with major brands like Coca-Cola, public-minded ideals continued to matter. Brands like Coca-Cola wanted to be associated with global football as a symbol of global cooperation built on universal equality among countries and their players. In the 1990s, this vision blossomed as major clubs increasingly recruited worldwide so that their teams represented the best talent in the world, at the same time as new and existing media markets were expanding to most countries and FIFA was taking steps to guarantee equal minimum funding to member associations. The objective of FIFA became ‘to improve the game of football constantly and promote it globally in the light of its unifying, educational, cultural and humanitarian values’. 6 International sports-governing bodies like FIFA are still expected to respect core principles of law, including the rule of law, the separation of powers, transparency, accountability and democracy. 7

Meanwhile, global football’s public viewership exploded through the expansion of media markets worldwide. The global football-watching public is the fundamental reason for FIFA’s major source of revenue through the sale of media rights to its games. According to FIFA estimates, over 1.1 billion people watched the final match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia live. 8 As media markets expanded from the 1970s onwards, global football became a quasi-public good. Football itself remains non-rivalrous and non-excludable since anyone with an improvised ball can play. Of course, tickets to live matches or television and Internet subscriptions for full matches remain private goods. Yet, increasingly, watching games and accessing scores has become available almost for free to anyone with a mobile Internet connection or to anyone who can access games that are shown on the street or in a bar or restaurant.

But, as the fights over FIFA governance reforms show, how to govern FIFA in the global public interest remains an unanswered question. Even after reforms, neither FIFA nor its 211 member associations or six continental confederations are required to or for the most part choose to include external stakeholders like football fans in their governance structure. 9 With this in mind, we review these books in search of the role of governance in the ‘culture of corruption’ in FIFA, a culture that spans the globe and governs one of humanity’s favourite sports. In Part 2, we analyse this culture within FIFA, describing FIFA’s evolution from an amateur association to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. In Part 3, we consider how corruption has functioned as an informal governance tool in FIFA and how the February 2016 FIFA reforms addressed it. Finally, in Part 4, we evaluate whether and how FIFA governance can be reformed to better consider the global football-watching public.

A State Power and the Expansion of Global Football

The modern history of FIFA begins with the spread of the football organization globally in the post-war period. In 1944, FIFA had 60 member associations; by 1964, it had more than doubled in size to 123, 32 of which joined between 1960 and 1964, as previously colonized states gained independence. 10 As John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson observe, the bare bones of the football association existed: a president, running FIFA out of a home in Zurich, and his staff (at 49). In response to growing administrative needs, FIFA did create formal governance bodies. The 1961 FIFA Extraordinary Congress revised its Statutes to create a general secretariat and Executive Committee, which held the fullest powers of administration and management, including selecting the World Cup host country, beginning in 1970. 11 Nevertheless, as Sugden and Tomlinson write, it was an era of making key decisions in football in smoke-filled back rooms (at 24).

In 1974, building on his own strength as president of the Brazilian Football Association – and with the support of Brazilian football legend Pelé – João Havelange won the FIFA presidency on a platform of distributing funds to under-developed football associations, which were concentrated in Africa and Asia. Although Havelange had personal charisma and flashy tactics, both Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson consider his political strategy within FIFA to be the root of his success. The Havelange strategy was to play into the structure of FIFA. FIFA member associations were by this point the FIFA president’s electoral constituency; they had needs, and they also elected the FIFA president. In such a system, Havelange simply needed to deliver for his constituents, which were heavily concentrated in South America, Africa and Asia, in order to rise to power.

In turn, the new FIFA member associations had organized themselves to develop significant power within FIFA, thanks to its governance structure, as Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson both highlight throughout their analyses. Discussed in more detail below, the basic structure of FIFA was composed of four bodies: a Congress with representatives from every member association, a president, an Executive Committee with members appointed by continental confederations and a general secretariat, which oversaw day-to-day business. In the Congress, FIFA represented football states according to the one country-one federation-one vote system, which was consistent with international bodies like the United Nations General Assembly in which sovereign states each have one vote. 12 As in other institutions, this structure gave small states – for example, Trinidad and Tobago – the same power in the FIFA Congress as major states like France. This was checked slightly in the Executive Committee, in which FIFA allocated seats to its member confederations for them to fill. 13 But disproportionate representation remained an issue. For example, CONMEBOL and Concacaf each had three Executive Committee members, but CONMEBOL has 10 member associations and Concacaf has 41, meaning that despite CONMEBOL’s members having larger football programmes, Concacaf had greater representation within the FIFA Congress, which translated into greater influence. This dynamic was key to the system that Havelange used to win loyalty by distributing funding to new member associations.

In each of their books, Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson confront whether the ‘culture of corruption’ in FIFA stems from the ‘cultures’ of corruption outside it. Sugden and Tomlinson suggest that it does. In their chapter ‘Politics of the Belly’, they explain that CAF has become a key power bloc in the organization because of ‘quasi-feudal traditions’ of power in Africa in which the few have command over scarce resources and extort the many who want to gain access to them. According to these authors, this so-called ‘politics of the belly’ in Africa explains why CAF member associations leverage scarce resources over which they have command and sell their votes to the highest bidder (Sugden and Tomlinson, at 108). In the concluding chapters of his book, Conn argues against this view, pointing out that the corruption in FIFA began not in Africa but, rather, in Germany and Switzerland in deals with European sports marketing companies, made to enrich FIFA leadership and its constituents (at 274). Conn has the better argument, based on the evidence in the books reviewed. By 1974, the structure of FIFA gave voice to new constituencies with little to no budget or organizational history, and, therefore, power in FIFA depended upon gaining their votes and satisfying their interests ( ibid ., at 58). As the largest confederation in FIFA, CAF was a key voting bloc on this logic alone. In explaining the rise of Havelange, even Sugden and Tomlinson point to FIFA’s structure and corruption in Europe, beginning with the sports marketing companies, as the beginning of corruption in FIFA (chs 3–4).

B Global Capital; Global Football

FIFA is a non-profit organization registered as a Swiss verein , which permits it to pursue commercial activity only in pursuit of its non-profit goal. 14 In its modern history, FIFA’s pursuit of its non-profit goal – ‘to improve the game of football constantly and promote it globally in the light of its unifying, educational, cultural and humanitarian values’ 15 – has been inextricably tied to the injection of capital into the game. For Havelange, gaining revenue for FIFA was essential in order to deliver on his election promise to expand the game globally – to fund new member associations and to expand the World Cup to 24 countries in 1982 (Conn, at 49). Conn notes that European member associations would have preferred to keep FIFA under their control, but, once Havelange became president, with the backing of Africa, Asia, and South America, governing football ‘for the world’ would require more commercialization. The amateurism would need to become professionalism ( ibid. , ch. 4). Both Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson write that doing so was essential for Havelange to meet his campaign promises ( ibid. ; Sugden and Tomlinson, at 50). Furthermore, it was now possible to sell the FIFA World Cup as a more lucrative product. Sports marketing advertisers like Adidas were developing a model of exclusive sponsorships of players and tournaments, creating an opportunity for FIFA to sell advertising rights. Increasing television penetration meant that FIFA could sell television rights for its matches at significant value as well.

Soon after his election in 1974, Havelange began partnering with sports marketing firm West Nally to sell rights to the FIFA World Cup. In different ways, both Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson show how advertisers, who had recently discovered the basics of what came to be modern sports advertising such as sponsorships and advertisement placements, encouraged FIFA to expand global football to new constituencies and thereby open new advertising markets in the process. Conn highlights that FIFA undertaking a coordinated global football development programme, as such, only began in 1975 when Coca-Cola not only sponsored the programme but also provided key infrastructure for outreach through their distribution networks rather than through the domestic football associations (at 46). As Sugden and Tomlinson write, West Nally came up with the first 1977 FIFA World Youth Championship, for which it was able to get Coca-Cola as a sponsor, which was the precursor to Coca-Cola sponsoring the 1978 World Cup in Argentina (at 50–52).

Dealing with sports marketing companies was arguably the first major source of corruption in modern FIFA. Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson include interviews with Patrick Nally, founder of West Nally. Conn includes Nally’s explanation of his business partner Horst Dassler’s strategy to give side payments to FIFA, ensuring that its officials would remain loyal (at 271). The strategy worked. When Dassler split from West Nally and formed International Sports Leisure (ISL) with Japanese firm Dentsu in 1982, FIFA gave ISL exclusive control over its rights until ISL’s bankruptcy in 2001. As Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson both detail, bankruptcy proceedings for ISL meant that their financial relationship with FIFA was revealed in court, which became a major force for accountability for past corruption (Conn, at 150–151; Sugden and Tomlinson, ch. 1). By 1998, Sepp Blatter, who had first negotiated the Coca-Cola sponsorship of development programmes and overseen football development under Havelange as his secretary general, had been elected FIFA president. But Blatter faced re-election in 2001, 11 members of the FIFA Executive Committee filed a criminal complaint for mismanagement against him in the Swiss court, which the Swiss prosecutor ultimately declined to investigate after reaching a settlement with FIFA (Conn, at 150–153; Sugden and Tomlinson, at 15). Blatter won re-election that year, and no one was ultimately held accountable for the alleged conduct (Conn, ch. 10). FIFA has not sought repayment from the officials who were known to have been paid bribes ( ibid. , at 152). The ISL case is among the clearest examples of corruption in FIFA, plain self-dealing at the cost of funds contractually due to FIFA.

However, venality in FIFA is not always so straightforward. For example, the books reviewed frequently observe the spending habits of FIFA officials to highlight the distance between the masses who watch football and the elite cadre running it. By the late 1990s, football media rights had increased in value exponentially, flooding FIFA with capital (Conn, at 58). 16 Sugden and Tomlinson observe that FIFA had become associated with luxury; FIFA members earned high salaries and honorariums, and FIFA events – for which FIFA, its confederations or member associations, typically paid expenses – were hosted at luxury hotels, executive lounges and high-end restaurants (see, e.g., ch. 12; Mersiades, chs 6, 8; see also Blake and Calvert, at 40, 133). Both books dedicated to the host vote for the 2018/2022 World Cups highlight that gifts to FIFA officials – considered to be of token value and, therefore, permitted by the FIFA Statutes – included luxury goods worth at least several thousand dollars (see, e.g., Mersiades, chs 4, 14). However, extravagant football-related spending does not necessarily entail corruption if FIFA can justify its expenses in good faith as being related to its non-profit goal of improving and promoting the sport. It requires close parsing to understand due and undue influence in FIFA. As discussed below, the line between them is often unclear.

C The Money of FIFA Is Your Money?

Conn observes that when current FIFA president Gianni Infantino took office in February 2016 and told the FIFA Congress that ‘the money of FIFA is your money’, he continued a commitment to distributing funds within FIFA that had begun with Havelange but which had escalated heavily under Blatter as FIFA revenues increased exponentially in the late 1990s (at 241). Specifically, Blatter accelerated a new aspect of corruption, not as clear as the acceptance of media bribes or favours: the use of development funds. When elected as FIFA president in 1998, Blatter began the Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) to distribute US $250,000 annually to each member association (Conn, at 60, 63); as of 2014, the programme also paid US $5.5 million annually to each confederation under the Confederations Development Programmes. 17 Blatter also started the Goal Programme, which provided discretionary funds to member associations; by 2014, the Goal Programme had spent US $284 million on 668 projects, including 191 new football association headquarters and facilities in Africa and 158 in Asia (Conn, at 62). In the 2011–2014 financial cycle, development-related expenses included a ‘World Cup bonus’ of US $1.05 million to each member association and US $7 million to each confederation. 18

Both Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson acknowledge that development funds were subject to some corruption, but they disagree about the extent of this corruption. Conn acknowledges that the decision about how to spend much of the money was made without consulting member associations. For example, bin Hammam, as head of the Goal Programme under Blatter, decided that Goal funding should be spent on building a ‘house of football’ for each member association. As a construction magnate himself, bin Hammam argued that real estate would have a lasting impact on member associations, unlike football support programmes (Conn, at 63–64). Conn observes that, strengthened by football development funding from FIFA, Cameroon reached the World Cup quarter finals in 1990 and that, in Afghanistan and Somalia, there were football pitches and organized teams, including, in Afghanistan, for women ( ibid. , at 51, 65–66). Yet Sugden and Tomlinson point out that the 1990 Cameroon national team barely had a single decent football to use at their pre-World Cup training camp; even though FIFA had distributed funds to the Cameroon member association for the team’s preparations, the money had never reached the players (at 112). Indeed, the team had to strike before their first World Cup game to guarantee the Cameroon member association would pay their salaries at all (at 112). According to Conn, such cases are exceptional. Based on various audits and interviews with former independent governance officials like Mark Peith and Domenico Scala, Conn writes that the Goal Programme was not a slush fund diverted for purely political gain (at 63–69). It is unclear from the books whether this characterization extends to FAP, to the funds that the member associations received from confederations or to all development funds in FIFA. But, in large part, it appears that FIFA’s discretionary football development funds – the Goal Programme, in particular – were largely spent on the development projects to which they were supposed to go, even if such spending was, as Domenico Scala described it, ‘a system of patronage in which the president distributed money to the electorate’ (Conn, at 67).

However, FIFA member associations and confederations have additional sources of income over which FIFA exercises less oversight. Evidence shows that the confederations and member associations spent separate development funds on other confederations and member associations for personal and political reasons. Each confederation had access to funds separate to those to which FIFA contributed. In The Ugly Game , Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert expose thousands of financial transactions made by Mohamed bin Hammam. From 2008 to 2010, bin Hammam was on a campaign to gain influence in FIFA as he envisioned becoming a candidate for the presidency and actively, though discreetly, supported Qatar’s bid to host the World Cup. Empowered by 13 bank accounts, including his AFC account, he gave personal gifts worth millions of dollars and all-expenses-paid trips to the leadership of member associations in Asia and Africa (Blake and Calvert, at 71). Although bin Hammam did not use the Goal Programme funds that he controlled, he did hire a former Goal Programme staffer to use their Goal Programme connections to funnel gifts from bin Hammam to key players in African football (ibid., at 65). Though accounting records described FIFA-related transactions as being for vague but legitimate purposes such as ‘business promotion’, ‘retention’ or ‘overheads’, related email exchanges explicitly describe the same transactions as personal spending.

Furthermore, when member associations did not want to ask directly for personal spending, requests for development from funds outside the Goal Programme were often used as a thin pretence. The South African government and its football association’s 2010 World Cup bid committee allegedly laundered a US $10 million bribe to CFU during the bid process as an ‘African Diaspora Legacy Programme’ (ibid., at 207, 217). Blake and Calvert describe Qatari football officials offering US $1 million to the son of the Nigerian football association president to sponsor a dinner at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa celebrating the greats of African football; though the dinner happened, it ultimately had no official sponsor (at 127–130, 152). Conn and Blake and Calvert describe the Nigerian football federation president asking for US $800,000 to build four artificial pitches in his country – an ostensible development project – but requesting that the money be paid directly to him, a tell-tale indicator that the request was for personal funds (Conn, at 83; Blake and Calvert, at 338). Furthermore, Blake and Calvert find bin Hammam paying for explicitly business expenses such as cars on the implicit understanding that the payments were personal gifts (e.g., at 74, 291).

This distinction is important because the books reviewed tend to use a broad brush to paint development funding as being widely misused. However, there are notable distinctions between FIFA-funded development, where the graft seems limited, and confederation-funded development, where the graft seems more common, based on the books reviewed. Nevertheless, ultimately, the responsibility lies with FIFA for two reasons. First, the confederations’ money came in part from FIFA, which suggests that either FIFA funds were directly misused by the confederations or, at a minimum, that they expanded the confederations’ budgets, thereby freeing up funds for corruption. Second, according to the FIFA Statutes, the FIFA Code of Ethics applies to confederations and member associations as much as it does to FIFA itself; when confederations and member associations breach the FIFA Code of Ethics, FIFA is responsible for taking appropriate action. 19

D Calling Foul?

Knowing that some – though not all – of FIFA’s development funding was systematically misused, the books reviewed disagree on the impact of this graft on FIFA governance. Most agree that because FAP and the Goal Programmes were presidential programmes, they helped Blatter win re-election as incumbent in 2002, 2007, 2011 and 2015. Conn describes corruption in FIFA as a form of patronage politics in which development funding was offered to member associations in exchange for votes, which created political rewards for spending on football development. For example, to win election to the FIFA presidency, Blatter had to commit to outspend his rival candidate Lennart Johansson, then the president of UEFA, who had made a big commitment to football development in Africa through the Meridian Convention, a memorandum of understanding between UEFA and CAF whose status was akin to a private contract (Sugden and Tomlinson, at 86). 20 By contrast, Sugden and Tomlinson highlight that votes were not only exchanged for development funds to member associations but also for direct personal payments, as when Blatter allegedly sent envelopes of cash to CAF representatives the night before the 1998 FIFA presidential election. Similarly, Blake and Calvert observe that bin Hammam sought personal benefit from his position as head of the Goal Programme when he sought votes – whether for Qatar’s World Cup bid or for his own FIFA presidential campaign – at the same time that he was able to distribute Goal Programme funding, a situation that Blake and Calvert call a conflict of interest (ch. 4). Overall, the books reviewed suggest that patronage politics on legitimate football promotion is not alone enough to reach the highest levels within FIFA, which entails personal spending on key constituencies, whether or not it is disclosed as such.

Doing so was facilitated in large part by the pre-reform FIFA governance structure, which concentrated power in the FIFA president and Executive Committee. Before the February 2016 reforms, FIFA had two standing bodies – the FIFA president, which ‘represent[ed] FIFA legally’, 21 and the FIFA general secretariat, the ‘administrative body’ 22 that was supervised by the president. 23 The FIFA president had presiding power over the Congress, the Executive Committee of FIFA and any committees he chaired. 24 However, the FIFA president’s main source of power was the Executive Committee, which held all power to pass decisions on all cases not within the ‘sphere of responsibility of the Congress’ or reserved for any other body. 25 Though it met only twice a year, the Executive Committee controlled FIFA’s revenues – its sale of media rights, the regulations for its international matches and competitions and the selection of the World Cup host – and its budget, including development funding. Furthermore, the Executive Committee also controlled the internal regulations of the organization. 26 Although the FIFA Congress was the ‘supreme and legislative’ body, 27 it was required to meet only once a year and had limited powers, including to elect the FIFA president and to admit new FIFA member associations. 28

This concentration of power in the FIFA president and Executive Committee made decision-making in FIFA opaque, as illustrated through the disagreement between The Ugly Game and Whatever It Takes about how and why the FIFA president and Executive Committee members voted in the 2018/2022 World Cup vote. Most notably, The Ugly Game depicts bin Hammam’s documented spending from 2008 to 2010 as a ‘plot to buy the World Cup’. In Whatever It Takes , Bonita Mersiades disputes this interpretation, noting that The Ugly Game documents payments by bin Hammam to only two Executive Committee members, Jack Warner and Reynald Temarii; most of the documented payments were to football leadership outside the Executive Committee, who did not vote to determine the host of the World Cup (ch. 1). Instead, Mersiades characterizes the payments as serving to assist bin Hammam’s political campaign for FIFA president, and not the Qatari bid for the World Cup. We think that Mersiades’ view seems too narrow. It is true that bin Hammam was not personally involved, for example, in setting up a notorious dinner between UEFA president Michel Platini, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, then Qatari Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (now the Emir) and then Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, in which President Sarkozy made clear to Platini that Qatar would make major investments in French football, which Sarkozy wanted, if Platini voted for the Qatari World Cup bid. 29 However, Blake and Calvert document bin Hammam personally helping facilitate a deal for Qatar to sell natural gas to Thailand at a renegotiated price that was more favourable to Thailand in order to secure the vote of Thai Executive Committee member Worawi Makudi for the Qatari bid (ch. 10). Furthermore, bin Hammam hosted several other Executive Committee members – CAF president Issa Hayatou from Cameroon, Amos Adamu from Nigeria, Jacques Anouma from Ivory Coast and FIFA president Sepp Blatter himself (Blake and Calvert, at 26, 108). Though different from his broad-based appeals to Asian and African member association heads based on giving personal gifts, bin Hammam still took significant steps to influence FIFA Executive Committee members.

If a pattern can be drawn from the differences depicted in The Ugly Game between spending on Executive Committee members – who could vote for the World Cup host – and on FIFA Congress members – who could not – it is as follows. Executive Committee member votes for the World Cup host went to the highest bidder, which benefited those football associations whose governments, like Qatar, were willing to support their bid through investment in Executive Committee members’ states. FIFA Congress member votes for FIFA president would be won with a candidate’s commitment to FIFA member associations that the candidate would be willing to spend on them in the long term, which was typically indicated through financial payments or in-kind gifts made by the candidate to leadership of member associations. In The Ugly Game , email correspondence from FIFA officials to bin Hammam requesting such bribes provides evidence of this pattern (Blake and Calvert, ch. 13). In sum, the way to have enough power in FIFA to help win a World Cup bid or to contest the FIFA presidency was to have a position in FIFA that facilitated spending money on others in strategic ways. This is made possible not only by having access to the capital to do so but also by having the knowledge about who to pay and how.

E Back to the Beginning?

Aimed at a football-watching audience, the books frame their own critique of corruption in FIFA in large part through a prism that football fans can intuitively understand: the decline of sportsmanship as a value in football administration. At times, Mersiades and Sugden and Tomlinson all lament that football management is increasingly dominated by businessmen at the expense of sportspeople. However, Conn points out that the amateur roots of the football administration were themselves a cause of corruption in FIFA since it was expected that people would work ‘for the love of the game’, which prompted them to ask for special favours rather than a professional salary (at 272). Conn is less concerned with the loss of amateurism than with the loss of honesty; by focusing on Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer, national football icons in France and Germany respectively, he does not express disappointment that they turned into football businessmen but, rather, that they became corrupt ones (see, e.g., chs 15, 17). In the latter half of his book, Conn describes these men as examples of fallen heroes who need not have been so, pointing out that it has only taken a few ‘honest souls in the room’ to create accountability for major FIFA scandals by whistle-blowing on their supervisors (at 111).

In the background, the books are also concerned about subtler but fundamental shifts in the administration of football. Authoritarian state powers like Qatar, Russia and Thailand can spend without accountability on football – whether directly in funding their countries’ member associations or their confederation or indirectly by offering business deals to key decision-makers in FIFA. Even democratic countries such as Brazil can have their institutions tested when facing the golden opportunity of hosting a World Cup (Chade, ch. 11). Mersiades observes that the Australian bid was hampered as much by limited funds as by accountability to the Australian government, which poured roughly AUS $40 million into the bid that could not be used for certain personal gifts or trips, requiring the Australian bid to fundraise for a second pool of money to operate ‘the FIFA way’. Football Federation Australia (FFA), which was unfamiliar with FIFA power politics, had to hire multi-million-dollar consultants to advise them on who to influence and how. As Mersiades illustrates, proxy influence within FIFA is not enough to compete with the direct influence of FIFA power players like bin Hammam.

Finally, Conn highlights that reform processes before 2016 were of limited use in deterring the ‘culture of corruption’. Blake and Calvert and Conn alike note that Blatter had power over the Ethics Committee to request investigations and sanctions against his opponents. In Blake and Calvert’s view, this resulted in Blatter initiating an investigation into the 2018/2022 World Cup bidding procedures after bin Hammam publicly criticized him (at 137). As Conn points out, this also facilitated the Ethics Committee swiftly suspending bin Hammam from football for giving cash gifts to CFU members during his presidential campaign against Blatter (at 121–122). FIFA first adopted a FIFA Code of Ethics in 2004, and, in 2006, it created an Ethics Committee. In 2011, following the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup votes, FIFA consulted Mark Peith to recommend governance reforms. 30 In his report, Peith recommended, inter alia , that the Ethics Committee be made more independent of the Executive Committee, 31 which FIFA implemented. 32 Eventually, Peith called this a mistake, a sort of ‘own goal’ for Blatter because the independent Ethics Committee ultimately banned him from football for life (Conn, at 241). But it took time for Blatter’s reforms to catch up with him. UEFA blocked significant parts of the Peith reforms, such as term limits for the FIFA president and integrity background checks by FIFA for Executive Committee members (Conn, at 242). In 2014, Blatter announced he would run for another term as FIFA president, contributing to Peith stepping down from his role at FIFA, saying that ‘our work was useless’ if there is no accountability at the top for previous mistakes ( ibid. , at 165). Even after the independent Ethics Committee began taking up cases, Conn conveys disappointment with their results. In April 2013, the adjudicatory chamber of the Ethics Committee found that it did not need to rule on the pre-existing factual finding that Havelange and others had paid bribes to sports marketer ISL because Havelange and others had resigned from football in the interim ( ibid ., at 159). The adjudicatory chamber also found no evidence that Blatter knew about the bribes to ISL, which Conn observes seems implausible ( ibid. , at 161). In November 2014, the adjudicatory chamber found that the confirmed malpractice by bids for the 2018/2022 World Cups had not compromised the integrity of the outcome ( ibid. , at 166).

Although the books paint an exhaustive portrait of FIFA’s governance flaws, one question remains unanswered in all of them: why has FIFA resorted to corruption? Has it only been driven by the quest for personal gain by a few influential power brokers in FIFA, or are there structural incentives for FIFA to use corruption in order to perform its task of administering global football? In the next section, we analyse how corruption has served structural governance purposes in FIFA.

A Uses of Corruption

When FIFA announced its new Statutes in February 2016, the FIFA leadership was in tatters. Many members of the FIFA Executive Committee, including Blatter, were no longer in power to perpetuate the system that maintained their control over FIFA. Yet even without the grip of the old leadership, FIFA had sustained a ‘culture of corruption’ over almost 40 years, even as global organized football kept growing worldwide. FIFA managed to expand the game in part because it could coordinate decision-making on the important issues within its purview: who should run FIFA, which tournaments to host, when and where, what rules to create for team and club management including player transfers, how to make money from organized football and how to spend revenues to promote football development.

Corruption has certainly played a role in this evolution. Though the ‘culture of corruption’ has harmed FIFA – for example, by diverting organizational funds for personal use – it has also helped it coordinate global football. Though football itself is free, global football among countries and their club teams, all playing according to one set of rules and broadcasting games worldwide, requires major organization. It is this use of corruption, as an organizational tool, that the books under review often forget. Below, we identify three coordination problems – the ‘politics’ problem, the ‘distribution’ problem and the ‘outsiders’ problem – that corruption helps address.

First, corruption has helped FIFA member associations overcome the ‘politics problem’ – namely, by coordinating existing divergent interests among sovereign states. FIFA member associations represent their country’s domestic interests. Just as sovereign states compete and cooperate in the world order for scarce resources, so too do FIFA member associations (especially in the realm of international sport, which states typically consider an arena to express cultural or national pride). Havelange’s early and insightful solution, as Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson note, was to limit competition among states by making money widely available and ensuring it came with little or no accountability for how it was spent. Later on, corruption helped states build alliances in selecting World Cup hosts as well. Choosing a World Cup host depends on more than which country will bring in the most money for FIFA. Because of the symbolism of the World Cup, intangible factors like soft power and football strength play a role as well, but can lead to divisions among member associations. For example, FIFA enacted an informal rule that the same continent (and therefore, confederation) cannot host two consecutive World Cups, which means that in any given World Cup year, the eligible continents (and confederations) may have several constituent member associations bid for the same World Cup, as happened in 2010. Blake and Calvert detail how, in 2010, bin Hammam negotiated a continental pact with his fellow AFC Executive Committee members, who were from South Korea and Japan. Qatar, South Korea and Japan were all bidding from Asia for the 2022 World Cup; bin Hammam secured an agreement that, if their bid failed in one of the early voting rounds, they would back the other Asian bids in the later rounds (at 179). Bin Hammam could only secure the agreement by doing an earlier favour for the South Korean member of the Executive Committee, Chung Mong-joon, by facilitating payments to member associations through AFC funds to help Chung’s re-election campaign for the FIFA vice presidency (Blake and Calvert, ch. 8). Though the informal agreement violated FIFA’s bidding guidelines, it helped coordination among would-be rivals, encouraging friendly relations in football.

Second, corruption has helped avoid first-order questions about development funding in football – the ‘distribution problem’. Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson address early disputes between Europe and Africa over whether FIFA should be engaged in significant development funding (Conn, ch. 3; Sugden and Tomlinson, ch. 3). But, once FIFA decided to fund development significantly, hard questions arose about how such funding should be spent. These questions are not amenable to expert answers. Answers depend on input from those actually affected by football development spending to identify needs and funding priorities. But FIFA avoided soliciting input from stakeholders. In some cases, they made top-down decisions, like deciding every member association should get its own ‘house of FIFA’. More often, FIFA and its confederations gave funds and delegated decision-making about priorities to member associations, even as they knew that there was little accountability at the member association level for whether the funds were spent as stakeholders would like or need. As Chade observes, in Brazil, this means that football development in one of the world’s great football powers remains heavily underfunded, while its leadership has managed to siphon off millions for their own personal use (ch. 14).

Finally, corruption has facilitated FIFA’s engagement with a network of diverse and diffuse actors – what we have named the ‘outsiders problem’. Certain actors are barely represented within FIFA but have significant power within football. For example, in the governance structure of FIFA, financially powerful clubs such as Real Madrid or Manchester City have no formal representation in FIFA but, nevertheless, have significant influence over UEFA. The governments of Qatar and Russia are not formally represented in FIFA, but, through their influence over their domestic federations, they have significant voice as well. Sugden and Tomlinson show that by keeping power concentrated in the FIFA president and the Executive Committee until the February 2016 reforms, FIFA facilitated a decision-making structure that rewarded informal consultation and negotiation among a few decision-makers, conducted in large part through in-person meetings at events worldwide throughout the football calendar. Private jets, lavish dinners and club seats at football matches have made these meetings an opportunity for influence peddling through offers by attendees to host each other, provide access to special perks and pay for each others’ expenses. Pre-reform, the FIFA Statutes prescribed no decision-making procedures for the Executive Committee, which did not publish the minutes of its meetings. 33 As the books reviewed show, at a given football event, it was likely that there was a mix of FIFA officials and relevant other important actors from businesspeople to politicians amongst the participants, all attending to influence each other.

B February 2016 Reforms

One way to assess whether the February 2016 reforms were adequate in reforming FIFA (even before they were amended in May) is to question whether they constitute an alternative to corruption in addressing these three coordination problems. The February 2016 reforms are composed of several different elements. The first major component was an intended redistribution of power among the FIFA bodies. All of the bodies were retained in the post-reform Statutes except for the FIFA Executive Committee, which was abolished and replaced with an expanded 37-member FIFA Council. 34 Simultaneously, three-term limits were established for the presidency, 35 the FIFA Council members 36 and members of the judicial bodies. 37 The statutory roles of the bodies were changed; although the FIFA Congress remains the ‘supreme and legislative body’, 38 the FIFA Council was renamed the ‘strategic and oversight body’, 39 the general secretariat was made the ‘executive, operational and administrative body’ 40 and the FIFA president now represents FIFA ‘generally’ instead of legally, 41 while FIFA’s secretary general is described as the ‘chief executive officer (CEO) of FIFA’. 42 However, the distribution of functions remains largely in place. The powers of the FIFA Congress remain the same, 43 though it is worth noting that after 2010, the FIFA Statutes had been amended to give the FIFA Congress the power to vote for the World Cup host. 44 The FIFA Council retains first decision-making powers over almost all of the major areas of FIFA decision-making – budget, development spending, FIFA Governance Regulations, FIFA Code of Ethics and selling rights to competitions and events. It also ‘oversees the overall management of FIFA by the general secretariat’ 45 and enjoys hiring and firing power over the FIFA general secretariat in its day-to-day performance. 46

This governance structure remains vulnerable to the FIFA Council’s consolidating power just as the FIFA Executive Committee did before the reforms. From a ‘constitutional’ perspective, there is no system of checks and balances among the FIFA bodies. The FIFA Congress, for example, as the ‘legislative’ body, could have been given the power to make ‘standards, policies and procedures’ that would have been implemented by the general secretariat under the Council’s supervision, but the FIFA Statutes give that power to the Council. In the current structure, the FIFA Council simultaneously makes the rules, oversees their implementation and issues the FIFA Governance Regulations that allocate power to the general secretariat. 47 Arguably, FIFA has aimed in part to remodel its governance structure consistent with corporate models rather than with state governance structures, for instance explicitly making the Secretary General CEO; implicitly, the FIFA Council can be considered to be the FIFA Board of Directors and the FIFA Congress to be FIFA owners or stakeholders. But, even on a corporate governance model, FIFA remains vulnerable to mismanagement. The FIFA Congress is composed of member associations that typically do not represent all of the stakeholders involved in organized football. Unlike in most corporate settings, maximizing stakeholder value in FIFA cannot be approximated through valuations of shares or media rights because FIFA is a non-profit, a Swiss verein , entrusted with improving and promoting football. This creates a fundamental principal–agent problem. In theory, the FIFA Congress should hold the FIFA Council accountable to act with loyalty in the interest of FIFA’s non-profit purpose. In practice, the FIFA Council has the power to capture the interests of the FIFA Congress, which it has done under the guise of football development, undermining the system of incentives at the heart of good corporate governance. Furthermore, based on the description of how FIFA does business that the books provide, the FIFA Council, with its small group of football elites able to strike deals in person at football-related events or at private meetings, is better equipped to run FIFA ‘day to day’ than the general secretariat, whose role has traditionally been to implement the decisions of the FIFA leadership without exercising significant discretion. Unless FIFA plans to change how it does business, the FIFA Council retains a practical advantage in maintaining dominance within FIFA, supported by its strength within its governance structure.

The second major component of reform was the creation of independent checks on power within FIFA. In the February 2016 reforms, FIFA required its Governance Committee, 48 Finance Committee 49 and Development Committee 50 to be at least half comprised of independent members; the Audit and Compliance Committee members must all be independent. 51 The Governance Committee is tasked with conducting eligibility checks on FIFA body members to ensure that they do not have improper conflicts of interests. 52 In addition, the Governance Committee, Audit and Compliance Committee and the judicial bodies were all made answerable to the FIFA Congress rather than to the FIFA Council (which Infantino convinced the FIFA Congress to change in May 2016, as explained above). 53 In February 2016, the hope was that if given time to take root, these independent systems would have increased accountability for corruption in FIFA. At the time that he was dismissed, Ethics Committee investigatory chamber chair Cornel Borbély said that he was in the middle of hundreds of cases, some against senior FIFA officials, including Infantino himself. For the FIFA Council to have asserted hiring and firing power over independent committees meant a return to key features of the pre-reform period, in which there was a blatant conflict of interest in the administration of FIFA justice, and, as Conn writes, the Ethics Committee pulled punches against top FIFA leadership.

C Past the Goal Post?

Even if all the February 2016 reforms had remained in place, they still did not provide alternatives to corruption for football actors to coordinate. To solve the ‘politics problem’, FIFA officials would have needed the FIFA Statutes to create a legitimate ‘currency’ in which they could trade. For example, legislative influence in the FIFA Congress, as the ‘supreme and legislative body’, could have provided such a currency. In legislatures, members typically have full power to legislate on a wide range of issues, can trade votes on different pieces of legislation, can exchange support for certain priorities within a piece of legislation and can develop expertise to gain higher-level positions or hold hearings to raise attention on a given issue. This range of potential actions facilitates trading among legislators in legitimate legislative influence. 54 However, as discussed above, the post-reform FIFA Congress remains an underused forum for political action.

To solve the ‘distribution problem’, FIFA would need to adopt a policy that confronts the trade-offs involved in spending, that solicits feedback from stakeholders about how to spend the money received and that enforces the proper use of funds. However, the new FIFA development plan, FIFA Forward, 55 largely avoids doing any of this. It increases funding to member associations and to confederations and reinforces accountability for operational costs; FIFA Forward requires member associations to sign a contract with FIFA with a strategy for football development for two to four years, all association-specific projects must be in the contract and member associations must report to FIFA on their progress in order to get future funds. For associations to get the full US $500,000 to cover operational costs, they have to meet certain requirements, such as having women’s professional and youth leagues. Furthermore, each member association must undertake an independent financial audit of FIFA Forward funds. However, as before, while FIFA Forward funding may be well used, the remainder of an association or confederation budget, free from these constraints, may not be (though post-reform, all member associations and confederations must commission an independent audit of their overall spending). 56 Furthermore, the increase in funds to FIFA members and confederations means that these bodies may comply with the new conditions placed on their funding – for example, having women’s football leagues – without cutting into their existing budgets, which may already be bloated from pre-existing corruption. Finally, member associations may re-assign all or part of their FIFA Forward programme funds to other member associations or confederations so long as they inform FIFA. As the books under review show, funding from confederations to member associations or among confederations or associations is a key source of corruption in FIFA.

Furthermore, FIFA has not made it mandatory that football stakeholders with an interest in how development funds get used have any voice in their spending. Instead, decisions are made through consultation with FIFA and its experts. In the new Statutes, one major opportunity for a stakeholder voice is the new Human Rights Policy. 57 As Chade observes, one major group without a voice in FIFA comprises those who face human rights abuses associated with FIFA conduct, such as those evicted for the construction of stadiums, labour abuses during their construction, players who are unpaid or would-be players trafficked through the promise of playing professional football. In the 2016 report For the Game, for the World: FIFA and Human Rights , John Ruggie, author of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights 58 and hired by FIFA as a consultant, recommended that ‘FIFA should establish formal structures for regular engagement with key stakeholders about human rights risks across its activities and events’. 59 Critically, this engages stakeholders only with regard to human rights abuses – so, for example, if players are not being paid or if youth or women are being discriminated against in the allocation of member associations’ resources, they may have a right to be consulted under the Human Rights Policy – but not if they simply want to articulate preferences about spending priorities. Nevertheless, the Human Rights Policy is important because it establishes the norm of consulting with stakeholders, a key value that is absent from FIFA’s decision-making procedures, and because FIFA has expressed an intent to ensure that the policy apply to FIFA member associations and confederations. FIFA has done so through its own policy, for which FIFA’s Secretary General is responsible, since respect for human rights is not a mandatory component of member association and confederation statutes. 60

Finally, to solve the ‘outsiders’ problem, as discussed above, the general secretariat would have to be empowered to shift how FIFA coordinates with global football actors: away from informality and towards regular decision-making procedures. It is not clear that FIFA has attempted such a shift, but there is no significant evidence in the books – or in the documents publicly available on the FIFA website – indicating that they have.

The books reviewed here all call for FIFA to be governed in the public interest. As discussed above, throughout FIFA’s modern history, stakeholders’ voices have been excluded and their interests captured. However, the books identify several different stakeholders in FIFA who vary significantly. This is where Chade’s analysis provides a different angle in viewing FIFA’s impact on member associations and their countries. Chade writes about football fans in host countries who face human rights abuses, such as mass evictions, that were associated with hosting the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. He observes that, in states without the opportunity for public voice in government, the decision to host a World Cup has disastrous consequences. He illustrates this point with absurd examples of the consequences of Brazil’s World Cup – for example, the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) choosing to build one World Cup stadium in Manaus, a town in the middle of the Amazon region with dangerously high temperatures, which is now facing unbearable maintenance costs (over 700,000 Brazilian reais or US $185,500 per month) and no longer hosts matches (Chade, ch. 13). The Mané Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia, also built for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, now serves as an office building for the regional administration offices, and its car park functions as a garage for the buses of the city. All of this because FIFA did not give stakeholders – as human rights holders, as football fans, as Brazilian citizens – a voice in FIFA to counter special interests. Mersiades addresses the challenges for states like Australia whose bids tend to have fewer government resources to devote to World Cup bids than non-democratic ones and in which those funds that are available are pulled directly from taxpayers to which the government is accountable. As the 2018/2022 bidding process might have suggested, in a bidding process that rewards the highest bidder, non-democratic states that can spend heavily without accountability are better positioned than democratic ones. Similarly, Conn points out that the stake of football fans in their sport is symbolic: because they believe in the principles of fair play that govern football on the pitch, they believe that the same rules should apply off it. Both Conn and Sugden and Tomlinson highlight the particular disadvantage that players in the global South face when their only funds for football come from FIFA, and FIFA is not holding their member associations accountable to ensure that the funds actually reach them. The ‘public’ interest covers all of these issues. But, as the ‘public’ are outside the FIFA governance structure, the only way forward for reform is to continue to push legal challenges that promote better governance generally.

Overall, the likelihood of a major US or Swiss prosecution in the future remains limited. Major prosecutions like the US prosecution covered decades-long multi-million-dollar schemes of corruption in FIFA, and it is unlikely that CONMEBOL and Concacaf have engaged in corruption to such an extent that they would open themselves up to liability in the USA – at least, so far. Switzerland has amended the Swiss Criminal Code with a bill known as ‘Lex FIFA’. Among other changes, Switzerland can now unilaterally indict persons for corruption of a private individual acting in an official capacity. 61 Switzerland has opened criminal investigations over the sale of World Cup media rights against the head of the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club and the Qatari media group beIN media, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, but no further action in the investigation has been made public. 62 At the state level, it is also possible that states may file prosecutions against their FIFA member associations or conduct by FIFA that falls within their jurisdictions. There is some hope for state-level accountability; at the time of writing, France had held Michael Platini in custody for questioning in a criminal investigation regarding alleged conduct related to the 2018/2022 World Cup host bids; he was released without charge. However, Chade reminds readers forcefully that the Brazilian courts have not acted against corruption in Brazilian football despite decades of widely known corruption in the sport. Until 2016, CONMEBOL headquarters also enjoyed diplomatic immunity in Paraguay, which is where its headquarters are located.

However, there are several venues beyond states where FIFA may be challenged on corruption and governance grounds. First, FIFA officials or stakeholders could file an internal complaint with FIFA’s Ethics Committee, with ultimate appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The FIFA Ethics Committee has jurisdiction over disputes among FIFA and its member associations, confederations, leagues, clubs, players, officials, intermediaries and licensed match agents on issues other than the Laws of the Game. 63 Although member associations are allowed to restrict this definition, 64 FIFA has only excluded disputes arising from the Laws of the Game, suspensions (not doping related) of up to four matches or three months and when an arbitration clause is otherwise applicable. 65 Currently, within the FIFA Statutes, there are several articles on which further legal development through judgments on complaints would be useful. One major area is determining what constitutes a breach of several of the Code of Ethics requirements, such as the prohibition on ‘undue’ gifts. 66 The second major area is determining the proper roles of the FIFA bodies. For example, was it within the FIFA Statutes for Infantino to fire members of the Audit and Compliance and Ethics Committees while they were investigating him? Is the FIFA Council adequately delegating powers to the general secretariat as required under the FIFA Statutes? Filing a complaint could be an opportunity to raise attention on a given governance issue in FIFA, and, with the right civil society support, to leverage the threat of reputational harm to prompt FIFA to act.

However, there are several challenges in pursuing this avenue of action. First, the complainant would have to be a FIFA official or ‘relevant stakeholder’, which would require finding an insider willing to challenge FIFA’s leadership. Even if a complaint was filed, the investigatory chamber of the Ethics Committee has discretion over whether to pursue an investigation after a complaint. 67 If the case were to go up to the FIFA Appeals Committee and eventually reach the CAS for final determination, there are several risks. First, the CAS specializes in lex sportiva , not administrative law, meaning that the case could be outside its competence. Second, this could lead to a ruling that affirms the FIFA leadership’s preferred interpretation of the FIFA Statutes. Third, CAS decisions are not necessarily public, meaning that FIFA could largely bury the ruling and limit it to its facts, undermining its effect as case law within FIFA, especially if the threat of reputational harm, as has been the case in the past, is not an adequate sanction to change FIFA’s behaviour.

Second, FIFA could be challenged under European Union (EU) law for anti-competitive behaviour. The famous Bosman 68 case in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) historically held that UEFA was generally subject to EU law – namely, to its fundamental freedoms – and that it could not unilaterally restrict the movement of players through its regulations. Furthermore, the specificities of competition law and the jurisdiction of the European Commission 69 over FIFA’s activities have been considered applicable by the CJEU, as the Piau case 70 clarified, and ‘that FIFA’s members are national associations, which are groupings of football clubs for which the practice of football is an economic activity. These football clubs are therefore undertakings within the meaning of Article 81 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community and the national associations grouping them together are associations of undertakings’. 71 The case concerned Laurent Piau, an agent for French football players, who argued for the incompatibility of the FIFA Players’ Agents Regulations (more precisely, the obligation of taking a written exam to obtain the necessary license imposed by FIFA) with EU law – namely, by abusing its position of economic strength as an economic player. 72 Although the Court refused such an assertion, there was still a general acceptance that EU competition law could in fact be applicable to FIFA, even if in that specific case there had been no abuse of its economic position. Similar competition law venues have been tried recently, challenging FIFA’s Regulations on Working with Intermediaries. 73 Under EU competition law, FIFA activities could be controlled by one of two provisions – either Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), dealing with illegal agreements between undertakings, on the basis of specific FIFA regulations that distort the free market rules, 74 or Article 102 of the TFEU, which is the basis of its abuse of its strong position in the football market through corruption (as was the case in the Piau case with a ‘collective dominance’ scenario). 75

It is worth noting that only some corruption involves FIFA as a market player selling media rights – in particular, taking of bribes from sports marketing companies. After the 2015 arrests in Zurich, this form of corruption may not continue. If it does, competitor sports marketing companies or purchasers of media rights from these sports marketing companies would be in a position to challenge FIFA under EU law – which could be done, rhetorically, for the benefit of football fans, to whom higher prices are passed on. However, such companies with business interests in FIFA may prefer to avoid litigating against it due to the risk of harming those interests. 76 Such interests will be significant; after all, FIFA holds a monopoly over rights to the world’s most popular game.

The books reviewed here show the challenges of a global governance structure like FIFA. In an organization that produces a pseudo-public good and is non-profit – yet which is run by a private entity without accountability to key stakeholders – the misaligned incentives are clear. In large part, the enduring popularity of football is FIFA’s saving grace – audiences will always watch football, and, therefore, FIFA’s media rights will always be valuable. As many do now, global football fans separate the beautiful game on the pitch from the ugly game behind it. But, as the books reviewed here remind, organized global football, especially the World Cup, still clings to a symbolic role in global soft power politics as an emblem of global cooperation by fair and equal rules. Inevitably, that role will fade if those entrusted to administer football cannot be inspired by those same lessons of fair play.

US Department of Justice, ‘Nine FIFA Officials and Five Corporate Executive Indicted for Racketeering Conspiracy and Corruption’ (27 May 2015), available at www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-corporate-executives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and .

Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), Joseph S. Blatter v. Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) , Case no. CAS 2016/A/4501, 5 December 2016, para. 318.

FIFA Statutes: Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes (2018 FIFA Statutes), Standing Orders of the Congress, August 2018, available at https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/the-fifa-statutes-2018.pdf?cloudid=whhncbdzio03cuhmwfxa .

N. Pillay, M.P. Maduro and J. Weiler, ‘Our Sin? We Appeared to Take Our Task at FIFA Too Seriously’, The Guardian (21 December 2017), available at www.theguardian.com/football/2017/dec/21/our-sin-take-task-fifa-seriously .

Gianni Infantino asked for the Governance Committee to allow Russian Vitaly Mutko, head of the Russia World Cup Organizing Committee and Minister of Sports, to continue to serve in the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), though, as a Russian government official, he was no longer eligible under the 2018 FIFA Statutes.

2018 FIFA Statutes, supra note 3, Art. 2.

See M. Peith, Governing FIFA , 19 September 2011, at 17–19, available at www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/footballgovernance/01/54/99/69/fifagutachten-en.pdf .

FIFA, 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia: Global Broadcast and Audience Summary (2018), at 5, available at https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/2018-fifa-world-cup-russia-global-broadcast-and-audience-executive-summary.pdf?cloudid=njqsntrvdvqv8ho1dag5 .

2018 FIFA Statutes, supra note 3, Art. 11(1).

Eisenberg, ‘Political Ignorance to Global Responsibility: The Role of World Association Football’, 39 Journal of Sport History (2005) 379, at 384.

Homburg, ‘Financing World Football: A Business History of the Fédération International de Football Association’, 53 Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte (2008) 33, at 54, 57.

Eisenberg, supra note 10, at 381.

One Executive Committee member was elected by the four British member associations; three members by the South American Football Confederation; four members by the Asian Football Confederation; eight members by the Union of European Football Associations; four members by the Confederation of African Football; three members by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football; and one member by the Oceania Football Association. See FIFA Statutes: Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes (2015 FIFA Statutes), Standing Orders of the Congress, April 2015, Art. 30, available at www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/generic/02/58/14/48/2015fifastatutesen%5fneutral.pdf .

Swiss Civil Code, 10 December 1907, revised 1 January 2019, Art. 60.s.

2018 FIFA Statutes, supra note 3, Art. 2.a.

Homburg, supra note 11, at 33.

See J. Ruggie, For the Game, For the World: FIFA and Human Rights (2016), at 16, 17, available at www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/mrcbg/programs/cri/files/Ruggie_humanrightsFIFA_reportApril2016.pdf .

For the member associations’ obligations, see 2018 FIFA Statutes, supra note 3, Art. 14. For the confederations, see Art. 22.3.

Though the authors cite the Meridian Convention, the Convention is no longer publicly available in full text and so it cannot be referenced.

2015 FIFA Statutes, supra note 13, Art. 32.1.

Ibid. , Art. 21.3.

Ibid. , Art. 32.2.b.

Ibid. , Art. 32.4.

Ibid. , Art. 31.1.

Ibid. , Art. 31.10.

Ibid. , Art. 21.1.

Ibid ., Art. 22.1, Art. 25.

Dupré, Mandard and Lemarié, ‘Le déjeuner à l’Elysée qui a conduit le Mondial au Qatar’, Le Monde (4 December 2015).

Peith, supra note 7.

Ibid. , at 23–25.

2015 FIFA Statutes, supra note 13, Art. 63.

Only the minutes of Congress’ session were dealt with in the 2015 FIFA Statutes, supra note 13, Art. 25.2.

FIFA Statutes: Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes (2016 FIFA Statutes), Standing Orders of the Congress, April 2016, Art. 33–34, available at https://resources.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/generic/02/78/29/07/fifastatutsweben_neutral.pdf .

Ibid. , Art. 33.2.

Ibid. , Art. 33.3.

Ibid. , Art. 52.6.

Ibid. , Art. 24.1.

Ibid. , Art. 24.2.

Ibid. , Art. 24.3.

Ibid. , Art. 35.1.

Ibid. , Art. 37.1.

Ibid. , Art. 28.2.

See 2015 FIFA Statutes, Art. 31.9.

Ibid. , Art. 34.3.

Ibid. , Art. 34.9.

Ibid. , Art. 34.11.

Ibid. , Art. 40.1.

Ibid. , Art. 41.2.

Ibid. , Art. 42.1.

Ibid. , Art. 51.2.

Ibid. , Art. 40.4.

Ibid. , Arts 40.1, 51.3, 52.5.

See, e.g., G. Wawro, Legislative Entrepreneurship in the U.S. House of Representatives (2001).

FIFA, ‘FIFA Forward Development Programme’, available at www.fifa.com/development/fifa-forward-programme/index.html .

2016 FIFA Statutes, supra note 34, Art. 14.1.a.

FIFA, FIFA’s Human Rights Policy (2017), available at https://resources.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/footballgovernance/02/89/33/12/fifashumanrightspolicy_neutral.pdf .

United Nations, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the UN ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework (2011), available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf .

Ruggie, supra note 17, at 31.

For member associations, see 2018 FIFA Statutes, supra note 3, Art. 14.1.a; for confederations, see Art. 22.3.

A. Gamalski, ‘Ending Swiss Secrecy: Switzerland’s Lex FIFA’, Michigan University College of Law International Law Review (15 February 2018), available at www.msuilr.org/msuilr-legalforum-blogs/2018/2/15/ending-swiss-secrecy-switzerlands-lex-fifa .

A. Lewis, ‘Swiss Prosecutors Open Investigation into Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari Chairman Nasser Al-Khelaïfi’, CNN (13 October 2017), available at https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/12/football/nasser-al-khelaifi-paris-st-germain-fifa-criminal-proceedings/index.html .

2018 FIFA Statutes, supra note 3, Art. 54.

CAS, ‘Code of Sports-Related Arbitration’ (2019), Art. R47, available at www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Code_2019__en_.pdf .

2018 FIFA Statutes, supra note 3, Art. 58.3.

FIFA, Code of Ethics: 2018 Edition (2018), Art. 20, available at https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/fifa-code-of-ethics-2018-version-takes-effect-12-08-18.pdf?cloudid=uemlkcy8wwdtlll6sy3j .

Ibid. , Art. 58.2.

Case C-415/93, Bosman (EU:C:1995:463).

The body in charge of conducting the competition law policies in the European Union according to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), OJ 2012 C 326/47, Art. 105.

Case T-193/02, Piau (EU:T:2005:22) and the subsequent appeal judgment in Case C-171/05, Piau (EU:C:2006:149).

Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community 1957, 298 UNTS 3.

The Court no doubt will qualify FIFA as such an economic player, even if it is not directly involved in buying or selling players: ‘The fact that FIFA is not itself an economic operator that buys players’ agents’ services on the market in question and that its involvement stems from rule-making activity, which it has assumed the power to exercise in respect of the economic activity of players’ agents, is irrelevant as regards the application of Article 82 EC, since FIFA is the emanation of the national associations and the clubs, the actual buyers of the services of players’ agents, and it therefore operates on this market through its members.’ Piau (2005), supra note 70, para. 116.

See the analysis by Kirwan, ‘Levelling the Playing Field: Remuneration Caps, EU Competition Law and Article 7(3) of the FIFA Regulations on Working with Intermediaries’, 15 Hibernian Law Journal 43, at 43–66.

For a complete analysis, see Marmayou, ‘EU Law and Principles Applied to FIFA Regulations’, 1 International Sports Law and Policy Bulletin (2015) 71.

TFEU, supra note 69. One big obstacle with this action, in practice, would be precisely to define what type of relevant market FIFA participates in – an exercise that is often difficult in multi-business enterprises such as FIFA.

See, e.g., the 2015 complaint from Football Players Worldwide regarding the new player transfer market system, which stated: ‘[T]his action is designed for the benefit of all, including the hundreds of millions of football fans who’ve been betrayed by the irresponsible administration of the transfer market.’ ‘FIFPRO Legal Action against FIFA Transfer System’, Football Players Worldwide , available at www.fifpro.org/news/fifpro-takes-legal-action-against-fifa-transfer-system/en/ .

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Tackling corruption in sport

The Council of Europe has been working since 2005 on solutions to such problems.

The key is to ensure that everyone involved in sport, from players, to trainers, to organising bodies work together, share information and aim for the same goal – fairness and safety in sport.

Stamping out corruption is important, not just for the image of sport, but for our liberal democracies per se, as it helps rebuild the public’s flagging trust in institutions.

(for information on the more specific aspect of corruption relating to the manipulation of sport, see the match-fixing page )  

What is the Council of Europe doing?

The Council of Europe is conducting a review of alleged cases of corruption in sport (Database on alleged cases of corruption in sport DACCS 2016) through its European sports co-ordination body, EPAS.

It is also gathering and sharing good practices from governments and umbrella sports organisations on the promotion of good governance in national sports organisations.

The work of EPAS on Gender Equality in Sport and Diversity in Sport plays an important role by promoting fair play in sport.

The Council of Europe has recently contributed to the bringing together of an international Partnership against Corruption in Sport (IPACS) , with international sports organisations, governments and other inter-governmental organisations to deal with the problem and agree on common standards.

The Partnership’s task force on the convergence of existing good governance frameworks is co-ordinated by EPAS. This covers: mandate limits, financial transparency and conflicts of interest. It will, among other things, be responsible for improving existing, legitimate frameworks (e.g. enhancement of the ASOIF questionnaire ).

In addition, EPAS prepared the Recommendation on the promotion of good governance in sport, which was adopted by the Committee of Ministers in December 2018.

Associated Work

EPAS fully supports the Sport Governance Observer 2017-2018 Project , which is being run by "Play the Game" with the support of the European Union. This will enable non-EU countries from the Council of Europe’s 47 Member States to join the process.

EPAS co-ordinated a UNESCO activity, within the Kazan Action Plan , to develop guidelines on integrity in sport to tackle problems including: doping, match fixing, sexual harassment and abuse and spectator violence.

EPAS is interested in supporting independent research on the implementation of good governance by sports organisations.

It is also following a Summary Analysis of Selected Private Sector Bribery Cases launched by the Council of Europe’s GRECO , which covers the sports sector.  

Good governance in sport has been on the political agenda since the beginning of the noughties.

The topic emerged when the Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for sport addressed it as its main topic in 2004.

On 20 April 2005 the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2005)8 on the principles of good governance in sport was adopted.

However, the resulting guidelines and principles established by international sports organisations have been not been properly implemented (see 2015 “Sport Governance Observer” (SGO) assessment of the implementation of good governance principles among 35 Olympic International Sports Federations).

Although not endemic in sport, corruption remains a serious problem. It was therefore the main theme of the Council of Europe’s 13th Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport in Macolin, September 2014 (MSL13) , and the 14th Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport in Budapest, October 2016 (MSL14) .

The topic has also been addressed by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly:

• Anti-doping
• Ethical sport
• Inclusive sport
• Sports manipulations
• Safety, Security and Service
• COVID-19 & Sport

United Nations

Office on drugs and crime, safeguarding from corruption: protecting the integrity of sport to harness its positive power.

14 December 2021 – Corruption in sport is not a new phenomenon. Fraudulent activities in the running of sports organizations and competitions have been documented from the times of the ancient Olympic Games all the way through to the modern day. What has shifted however is the scale and complexity of the issue.

Over the past two decades, criminal activities in the sporting world have substantially increased. Globalization has played a role, as have factors such as the huge influx of money going into sports, the rapid growth of legal and illegal sports betting, and a changing technological landscape which has transformed the way in which sport is played and consumed.

Combined, these factors have presented criminal networks with new opportunities to exploit sport for illicit profit.

To highlight this issue, a special event was held at this week’s Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, where a major new report on the topic was also showcased. Joined by a broad grouping of government officials, international organizations, and sporting bodies, the event offered an insight into crime and corruption in sport and highlighted the urgent need for a unified response to counter this issue.

“When we consider sport, our natural thought goes to its central, positive role in our lives,” noted UNODC Director for Treaty Affairs, John Brandolino. “There is, however, a darker side of sport, one which organized criminal groups have infiltrated and which is impacted by vast levels of corruption.”

The manipulation of sports competitions is a complex threat to the integrity of sport. With up to $1.7 trillion estimated to be wagered on illicit betting markets each year, it is a huge business for organized criminal groups.

This was highlighted at the event during which UNODC’s first-ever Global Report on Safeguarding Sport from Corruption was showcased.

Illustrating for the first time the scale, scope and complexity of corruption and criminal networks in national and international sport, the Global Report offers a playbook to effectively tackle these issues by setting out a range of concrete policy considerations.

“Nearly 200 experts from governments, sports organizations, the private sector and academia contributed to the report, which is the most in-depth of its type to date,” said Mr. Brandolino.

This new publication addresses 10 specific themes, ranging from illegal betting, competition manipulation and abuse in sport, to existing initiatives to tackle this problem, reporting wrongdoing, and how legal frameworks can be applied to prevent and fight corruption in sport. Ultimately, it identifies three crucial areas of action:

• First, the need to strengthen legal, policy and institutional frameworks to counter corruption and crime in sport, with a focus on major sports events, competition manipulation, illegal betting, and the involvement of organized crime.
• Second, the importance of enhancing understanding of and capacities to tackle corruption and crime in sport through further research and analysis.
• Third, the need for increased cooperation, and exchange of information and good practices among all stakeholders – mainly from the governmental and the sporting worlds.

Contributing to the special event discussion via video message, the Presidents of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) – two key partners for UNODC – both pointed to this issue of collaboration.

“Only in partnership can we effectively tackle criminal activities like corruption in sport. Only together can we strengthen credibility and integrity of sport,” noted IOC President, Thomas Bach. “Safeguarding integrity of sport is a team effort – in this context our cooperation with UNODC is key and the new Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two organizations sends a strong message of our shared determination to fight against corruption in sport.”

Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, shared a similar sentiment: “We must remain vigilant and united to defend our sport and our society (from corruption). Our cooperation with UNODC is vital. We stand on our joint mission to safeguard sport from corruption. Unity is key because like you we believe together everyone wins.”

While sport has the power to inspire and unite, corruption and crime threaten to undermine its positive contribution to our lives. Particularly when linked to abuse and exploitation of vulnerable groups and youth, the impact has a devastating effect on societies. The work of UNODC and its partners is central to working towards countering this. 

Further information

Global Report on Corruption in Sport

UNODC's Action against Corruption and Economic Crime

• Fraud Alert
• Legal Notice

Corruption in sport: Causes, consequences, and reform

• Kinesiology

Research output : Book/Report › Book

Corruption in the sport industry is a pervasive issue that threatens the integrity of sport as an institution. From doping and match-fixing to money laundering, corruption should be a concern to anybody interested in sport policy, management, governance, or ethics. This is the first book to explore the complexity of sport corruption in terms of its conceptualisation, causes, consequences, and reform. The first part looks at the concept of sport corruption, while the second examines the causes of sport corruption from individual, organisational, industry-wide, and longitudinal viewpoints. The third part discussed is the consequences of sport corruption and its impact on the global sport industry. Various approaches to regulatory reform are considered in the next part, as well as the challenges of combatting corruption in the sport industry. The final part assesses the current state of literature in this area and suggests opportunities for future research. Drawing on multidisciplinary case studies from across the world, this is a seminal contribution to the academic study of corruption in sport. It is important reading for all students and scholars of sport management, business, criminology, and law.

Bibliographical note

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Publisher link

• 10.4324/9781315677217

Other files and links

• Link to publication in Scopus
• Link to the citations in Scopus

Fingerprint

• Sport Industry Social Sciences 100%
• Sport Corruption Keyphrases 100%
• Sport Management Social Sciences 33%
• Criminology Social Sciences 33%
• Sport Policy Social Sciences 33%
• Sports Law Social Sciences 33%
• Studies (Academic) Social Sciences 33%
• Case Study Social Sciences 33%

T1 - Corruption in sport

T2 - Causes, consequences, and reform

AU - Kihl, Lisa A.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Lisa A. Kihl. All Rights Reserved.

PY - 2017/12/15

Y1 - 2017/12/15

N2 - Corruption in the sport industry is a pervasive issue that threatens the integrity of sport as an institution. From doping and match-fixing to money laundering, corruption should be a concern to anybody interested in sport policy, management, governance, or ethics. This is the first book to explore the complexity of sport corruption in terms of its conceptualisation, causes, consequences, and reform. The first part looks at the concept of sport corruption, while the second examines the causes of sport corruption from individual, organisational, industry-wide, and longitudinal viewpoints. The third part discussed is the consequences of sport corruption and its impact on the global sport industry. Various approaches to regulatory reform are considered in the next part, as well as the challenges of combatting corruption in the sport industry. The final part assesses the current state of literature in this area and suggests opportunities for future research. Drawing on multidisciplinary case studies from across the world, this is a seminal contribution to the academic study of corruption in sport. It is important reading for all students and scholars of sport management, business, criminology, and law.

AB - Corruption in the sport industry is a pervasive issue that threatens the integrity of sport as an institution. From doping and match-fixing to money laundering, corruption should be a concern to anybody interested in sport policy, management, governance, or ethics. This is the first book to explore the complexity of sport corruption in terms of its conceptualisation, causes, consequences, and reform. The first part looks at the concept of sport corruption, while the second examines the causes of sport corruption from individual, organisational, industry-wide, and longitudinal viewpoints. The third part discussed is the consequences of sport corruption and its impact on the global sport industry. Various approaches to regulatory reform are considered in the next part, as well as the challenges of combatting corruption in the sport industry. The final part assesses the current state of literature in this area and suggests opportunities for future research. Drawing on multidisciplinary case studies from across the world, this is a seminal contribution to the academic study of corruption in sport. It is important reading for all students and scholars of sport management, business, criminology, and law.

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U2 - 10.4324/9781315677217

DO - 10.4324/9781315677217

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BT - Corruption in sport

PB - Taylor and Francis

United Nations

Information service vienna.

• Press Releases

UNIS/CP/1137 14 December 2021

Safeguarding sport from corruption

Protecting the integrity of sport to harness its positive power.

Sport has the power to inspire and unite, yet corruption and crime threaten to undermine its positive contribution to society and our lives. The credibility of sport is at stake unless efforts are made to combat illegal betting, competition manipulation, abuse in sport, corruption in major sporting events, the involvement of organized crime in sport, and other illicit activities.

Corruption in sport is not new. Fraudulent activities in sports competitions and institutions have been documented since the ancient Olympic Games but in the past two decades criminal activities have increased substantially. The rapid growth of legal and illegal sports betting along with technological advances have transformed how sport is played and consumed, making it increasingly attractive to criminals.

The political declaration of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session against Corruption held earlier this year, highlighted the need for sports organizations, international and regional organizations, and law enforcement to cooperate to effectively combat corruption.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) helps through its Programme on Safeguarding Sport from Corruption and Crime, a key pillar of its Global Programme against Corruption. The programme supports governments, sports organizations and relevant stakeholders to tackle corruption and crime in sport.

Sport has seen several high-profile corruption scandals which has generated an increased momentum to tackle the problem. This is shown by the G20’s adoption in October this year of High-Level Principles on Tackling Corruption in Sport.

Fair competition versus manipulation and match-fixing

The manipulation of sports competitions, and the illegal betting that accompanies it, is a complex threat to the integrity of sport and a huge transnational business with up to 1.7 trillion US dollars a year estimated to be wagered on illicit betting markets.

The financial scale is such that illegal betting is a major driver of corruption in sport and a key channel for money-laundering. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the risk factors.

Youth sports, semi-professional competitions and women’s sports are increasingly being targeted because there is little or no monitoring of betting, and the manipulation is difficult to detect.

The proliferation of online gambling and the growth of cryptocurrencies along with the transnational nature of many illegal betting operations present a challenge. Illegal operators can exploit an uneven national legislative landscape while the Internet and cryptocurrency provide greater anonymity.

Governments and sports bodies are acting to address and minimize these risks. Major sports betting operations, betting industry associations and monitoring companies are cooperating and sharing betting data and suspicious betting alerts with sports organizations.

Global report on Safeguarding Sport from Corruption

The UNODC Global Report on Corruption in Sport shows for the first time the scale, scope and complexity of corruption and criminal networks in national and international sport.

Launched to coincide with International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December, the Global Report maps the corruption threats facing sport, analyzing the trends of corrupt practices in sport, looking at existing initiatives and good practices and how legal frameworks can be used to tackle the problem. Nearly 200 experts including from governments, sports organizations, the private sector and academia contributed to the report, which is the most in-depth of its type to date and sets out a series of possible responses.

The Global report highlights the urgent need to strengthen legal frameworks, develop policies, increase cooperation and enhance the understanding of the interlinkages between corruption and organized crime in sport and develop capacities of relevant government entities and sport organizations to tackle them.

What is UNODC doing about it

Through its Programme on Safeguarding Sport from Corruption and Crime, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has delivered over 150 activities including awareness raising, capacity building and technical assistance) to over 7,500 direct beneficiaries from more than 130 countries, since 2017.

The programme is financially supported by the Governments of Norway and the Russian Federation, the International Olympic Committee and the European Commission.

Through its research and analysis, UNODC enhances understanding of the problem and what needs to be done about it. Recent publications have covered the sport’s response to the pandemic and an overview of relevant laws and standards on tackling bribery in sport.

This year, UNODC extended its partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to further strengthen cooperation in fighting corruption. The agreement emphasises preventing youth crime, violence and drug use through sport. It also supports activities to enhance sport’s contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and promoting sport for development and peace, including through the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Further to this, UNODC has joined forces with world football’s governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), to encourage players, clubs, coaches and officials to speak out against matching-fixing and raise awareness about FIFA’s confidential reporting platforms.

UNODC has also supported the development of FIFA’s Global Integrity Programme, which provides Member Associations with resources to tackle match manipulation. UNODC has delivered training to four of the six confederations covering Africa, Asia, North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.

What needs to be done

As sport has evolved in terms of professionalism, globalization and accessibility, so the types of corruption that affect it and the scale have grown. Legal, policy and institutional frameworks need to be strengthened to prevent and respond to this.

More effective national cooperation between law enforcement, criminal justice authorities and sports organizations and increased exchange of information will also be vitally important to better detect and report corruption in sport and prevent competitions being manipulated.

It is critical athletes and others can come forward and report approaches from match-fixers, through open, confidential and anonymous mechanisms. Potential whistle-blowers can be discouraged or fear of retaliation or the belief it will not make a difference.

Investigative journalists are increasingly engaged in exposing corruption in sport but often face intimidation, attempts to undermine their professional credibility and even threats to their lives. Action needs to be taken to encourage independent media and investigative journalism.

Corruption in sport is a matter of public interest as countries invest in sport and promote its health, education and social benefits. Governments, sports organizations and athletes need to commit to developing and implementing comprehensive anti-corruption policies in sport to ensure it remains a force for peace and development.

Placing the integrity of sport at the centre of recovering from the pandemic is key to ensuring sport – and society – emerges from this challenge as strongly as possible.

Further information for the media

Conference website of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Conference website of the Host Country

Webcasts of the Plenary meetings will be available in Arabic , Chinese , English , French , Russian , Spanish as well as the language spoken on the conference floor

For further information contact:

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• Legal Notice
• Fraud Alert