IOC highlights importance of sport’s integrity on International Anti-Corruption Day

Whereas this day is an important opportunity to raise awareness of the threat of corruption across all sectors of society, the IOC is playing its part through sport all year round in this global effort.

2023 highlights

As 2023 comes to an end, here are some highlights of the IOC’s work that showcase the wide range of activities it has undertaken in this important field. They range from educational measures for different key stakeholders, to advocacy, to new resources and much more:

• January: Via the Olympic Movement Unit on the Prevention of Manipulation of Competitions (OM Unit PMC), the IOC supports educational measures for athletes and officials to prevent competition manipulation at the Winter European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF).
• February: In order to promote national cooperation, with the Council of Europe and INTERPOL, the IOC organises a webinar for National Olympic Committees (NOCs), law enforcement and state officials from Iceland, North Macedonia and Türkiye, all of which recently signed or ratified the Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (Macolin Convention).
• March: The IOC allocates a fund of USD 10 million per Olympiad to continue to support the successful work of the OM Unit PMC, reinforcing the monitoring around the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, and expanding the number of monitored events organised by International Federations (IFs) and multi-sport event organisers.
• April: During the ASOIF Governance Workshop, bringing together more than 50 representatives from the Summer and Winter Olympic IFs, the IOC gives a presentation on the revised Basic Universal Principles of Good Governance and the IPACS Sport Governance Benchmark.
• May: Publication of the paper “Integrity in sport: IOC approach”, which summarises the work led by the IOC to support the Olympic Movement in upholding ethical principles in the fields of anti-corruption; good governance; financial control systems; the prevention of competition manipulation; cooperation with law enforcement; and others.
• June: The IOC’s 2022 Annual Report is issued with a dedicated section on “credibility”, explaining the measures undertaken in governance and ethics, including details of the IOC Risk and Assurance Governance Model, fighting competition manipulation and all forms of corruption in sport.
• July: As the sporting world's attention turns towards the Rugby World Cup France 2023, the IOC supports and intervenes in a workshop organised by UNODC and World Rugby and aimed at protecting the integrity of the game. Participants include criminal justice authorities and rugby unions from the 18 nations qualified for this major event.
• August: The IOC works with the event organisers of the upcoming Asian, Panam and Pacific Games to support them in the prevention of competition manipulation through awareness-raising measures. Multi-sport events of that scale usually attract a significant number of high-level athletes and involve many NOCs.
• September: The IOC is a key contributor to the 6^th Annual General Conference of the International Partnership against Corruption in Sport (IPACS) held in Vienna, Austria, which brings together 100 IPACS partner representatives, including from governments, sports organisations, intergovernmental organisations and experts from the IPACS Task Forces.
• October: The IOC plays an instrumental role in issuing two new resources on the fight against corruption in sport: The IOC-OECD “Guidelines on the Effective Delivery of Infrastructure and Associated Services in the Context of the Olympic Games” and the new IPACS legislative guide entitled “Legal Approaches to Tackling Bribery in Sport”.
• November: The IOC hosts the inaugural meeting of the new IPACS Task Force on the promotion of good governance to prevent corruption in sport, attended virtually by over 45 experts to discuss ways of distributing the IPACS tools across all stakeholder groups.
• December: On IACD (9 December), the IOC team will participate in the 5th America's Best Practices Symposium in Miami, Florida, to present good practices of financial governance as part of the IPACS expertise. Organised by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee in partnership with Panam Sports and Olympic Solidarity, the event will be attended by 41 NOCs from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean. The IPACS Sport Governance Benchmark will be highlighted as a practical example of how the IOC is promoting the prevention of corruption within sport. The IOC will also join the UNODC Conference of the States Parties (COSP) to UNCAC in Atlanta, USA, from 11 to 15 December, to participate in high-level discussions about safeguarding sport from corruption in general, and at major sport events in particular.

About International Anti-Corruption Day

International Anti-Corruption Day (IACD) is celebrated annually by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a close partner of the IOC. The theme of this year’s edition is “UNCAC at 20: Uniting the World Against Corruption”, celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).