December 9 – SIGA’s chairman Franco Frattini and CEO Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros have both issues powerful calls to action in the fight against sports corruption on International Anti-corruption Day.
Tackling the hard corruption questions of illegality around player transfers in football, club ownership rules and who the real club beneficial owners are, the growing presence of unknown offshore markets and entities operating in football, and the need for a clearing house to bring transparency and legality to financial transactions, de Medeiros said: “This is a wake up call and we need to see action. Not words, action, and results. It is not enough to talk the talk, we need to walk the talk.”
De Medeiros highlighted the upcoming Italian presidency of the G20 and the move to put anti-corruption in sport at the top of the agenda.
He also said that there needs to be worldwide adoption of the SIGA universal standards and that while sport had shown an inability to defeat criminal and illegal activity on its own, sport still needed to be more active and encouraged the adoption of the SIGA’s independent ratings and audit, SIRVs, as a significant step in that direction.
“It is time to think bigger and bolder, to take decisive action and make meaningful global change,” said de Medeiros.
Frattini in his message echoed de Medeiros, saying that SIGA’s action plan is a strong blueprint for the battle against organised crime that has become prevalent in sport.
He called for greater co-operation between public bodies, law enforcement and the provate sector “to eliminate the porosity of sport to corruption.
Frattini, a supreme court judge in Italy, also said how it was “absolutely important to share data on suspect people and suspect money transfers” across national borders if we are “to penetrate and eradicate this illegal phenomena.”
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