The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IN an already packed week of sports, the Bahamas Olympic Committee is gearing up to host a major meeting with INTERPOL on Thursday in the Paul Farquharson Auditorium at the Royal Bahamas Police Force headquarters.

BOC president Wellington Miller said Interpol, in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee, would hold a meeting on the integrity of sport through education and awareness starting at 9am on Thursday.

“The meeting is for the IOC and Interpol to support national efforts to combat competition manipulation,” Miller said.

Two representatives from the IOC will be in town to conduct the all-day meeting that will take place with the stakeholders of all of the sporting bodies in the country. “All of the sporting executives, coaches and anybody who is involved in sports, is invited to attend,” Miller said. “We have already contacted just about everybody with their invitations, but we are asking anybody who has an interest in sports to attend.”

This is the first time that the IOC has held such a meeting in the Bahamas and indeed in the Caribbean. “They want us to host it so our sporting personnel and our sporting bodies can have an idea of how to deal with sports manipulation,” Miller stated. “That seemed to be the main thrust because we have to face it, there are manipulation in competition in our sports.

“I hope that as a result of the meeting being held here, all of us in sports will be able to detect the competition manipulation in our sports. We want to encourage our sporting leaders not to get involved in it because it could be embarrassing to our country.”

Miller said they are appreciative of the IOC and Interpol bringing the meeting to the Bahamas. The last meeting was held in Colombia. Prior to that, a similar meeting was held in Switzerland.

The IOC and Interpol collaborated to stage the Partnership Development Meeting that was first held in Oslo, Norway in 2015. It’s a part of the IOC’s bid to provide a clean and healthy forum for athletes to compete in.

“This meeting is another tangible result from Olympic Agenda 2020, which is all about protecting the clean athletes from doping, match-fixing, the manipulation of competitions and related corruption,” said IOC President Thomas Bach at the time. “Together, the IOC and INTERPOL are developing robust education and awareness programmes that are already having a positive impact in the fight to protect the integrity of sport. INTERPOL’s know-how and educational expertise is crucial in this regard.” 

As part of Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement, a USD 20 million fund is being leveraged to protect the clean athletes. USD 10 million has been earmarked to prevent match-fixing, manipulation and related corruption; the other USD 10 million is being used to support projects offering a new scientific approach to anti-doping. 

The IOC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with INTERPOL in January 2014. Since then, the two organisations have widened the scope of previous activities and drafted a strategy for concrete action over the 2015-2017 period.

The IOC and INTERPOL will continue to provide Partnership Development Meetings tailored to the unique circumstances of governments, law enforcement agencies and betting operators around the world.

The two organisations are working together to deliver workshops with National Olympic Committees and an annual seminar with International Federations (IFs) on the risk of match-fixing, manipulation of competitions and related corruption. An e-learning platform targeting all the participants at the Olympic Games – athletes, their entourage as well as NOC and IF officials – is also being developed.