INTERPOL, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and UNODC have held a workshop to strengthen Qatar's fight against corruption in sports and competition manipulation on 21 and 22 January 2019, in Doha.
It brought together more than 100 representatives from Qatari law enforcement, government, sports bodies and the Olympic movement to review and highlight existing legislation, international instruments and best practices to protect major sport events from competition manipulation and other breaches of sport integrity.
"Such initiatives aim at providing a safe environment for the management of safety and security operations in general and in major sporting events in particular. These workshops form part of a global capacity-building and training programme to help countries meet the new criminal challenges posed by competition manipulation, corruption and other threats to the safety of sport," said Brigadier Ibrahim Khalil Al-Mohannadi, Head of Consultancy Office, Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy.
H.E. Jassim Rashid Al-Buenain, Secretary-General of Qatar's Olympic Committee said: "The IOC and INTERPOL are amongst the top entities we cooperate with to form the umbrella that helps shape honest and fair competition where hard work does not go unrewarded and wrongdoing does not go unpunished. Integrity entails credibility, and the credibly of competition and sports organization is one of the key pillars of Olympic Agenda 2020."
Strongly supported by the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy of Qatar, international experts from INTERPOL, IOC, UNODC, Council of Europe, FIFA and the Athletics Integrity Unit also contributed to the event, as well as representatives of Project Stadia ( https://www.interpol.int/INTERPOL-expertise/Stadia/Project-Stadia), established by INTERPOL and funded by Qatar, which aims to help countries plan and undertake security and cybersecurity preparations for major sporting events.
UNODC and the IOC recently expanded their cooperation in order to fight competition manipulation and related corruption in sport.