Council of Europe Adopts Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions

Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (the so-called Macolin Convention) has been adopted by the Council of Europe and is officially in effect.

This piece of legislation’s purpose is to combat sports’ burning issue of match fixing. It would also help establish specific legal definitions for illegal betting, conflicts of interest and will be addressing what to do in case of poor handling of confidential information and poor governance.

A Complex Undertaking

32 countries belonging to this European body have signed the Treaty…

…and Italy, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, Moldova and Ukraine have all ratified the Convention. The treaty’s first line of action will be to form the Convention Follow-Up Committee which will have its first meeting in 2020. On it, progress made will be analyzed.

The Council of Europe’s and their partners’ activities will consist of “Keep Crime Out of Sport – Manipulation of Sports Competitions 2018-2020.”

This particular project will be providing logistical and technical aid to countries that need help battling match fixing. This trans-national coordination will be under supervision of Network of National Platforms, a body established in July 2016 – also with the purpose of combatting against the corruption of sports.

CoE’s statement reads:

“Several years of efforts and mobilisation by a large number of national and international actors have made it possible to take this crucial step in the fight against corruption in sport.”

Malta Objected

The Macolin Convention dates back to September 2014…

…when it was first introduced in its earliest form. The ensuing delay was due to the opposition from Malta which vetoed the signature by European Commission.

Maltese representatives have objected against the definition of illegal sports betting as “any sports betting activity whose type or operator is not allowed under the applicable law of the jurisdiction where the consumer is located.”

Following Norway, Moldova, Portugal and Ukraine, Switzerland became the fifth CoE member to ratify the Convention. This treaty also got by The Global Lottery Monitoring System, the World Lottery Association and the European Lotteries Association.

What Do Protagonists Think?

Global Lottery Monitoring System president, Ludovico Calvi, said:

“We now need to focus on its implementation as well as the preparation of the activities of the Follow-Up Committee.

In the phase, GLMS is very much looking forward to further ing the Council of Europe with the promotion of the Convention and all on-going and relevant work streams, such as the setting-up of the Follow-Up Committee, the initiatives of the Group of Copenhagen and the KCOOS+ project”.

EL Secretary General Arjan vant Veer, added:

“This Convention is of key importance since – apart from providing clear guidelines on how a state can globally combat this phenomenon – it also delivers for the first time a clear legal basis for the fight against illegal sports betting, which is indispensable for the effective implementation of all provisions of the Convention.

We urge more European states to sign and ratify the Convention as soon as possible to protect athletes and society as a whole.”

Source:

“Council of Europe’s Macolin Convention comes into force”, igamingbusiness.com, September 2, 2019.