ClearingSport: Countering corruption and crime, protecting integrity

Play the Game has initiated the project ClearingSport to inspire the creation of an independent international body to oversee the most urgent integrity challenges to sport worldwide. ClearingSport draws on consultations and collaboration with experts and stakeholders from various fields to create an institution that can effectively counter crime, corruption and abuse in sport.

Since the turn of the century, international journalists, experts, and organisations have highlighted a growing number of integrity threats to international sports. Bribery, organised crime, political manipulation, match-fixing and various forms of abuse of athletes have made regular headlines, while new and technologically advanced forms of sporting fraud and financial crime are on the rise.

During the Play the Game 2022 conference, a number of international experts called on Play the Game to start an open consultation process to explore the viability of an international agency against all forms of corruption and crime in sport.

Play the Game promised to start a process to identify how such a body can be established. Through comprehensive research and collaboration with a group of prominent industry experts, ClearingSport will present a proposal for a fully independent institution owned by a variety of stakeholder groups in early 2025. 

The ClearingSport proposal will be based on the following premises:

• The body must operate based on a set of standards defined by experts in the field and relevant stakeholders from sports governing bodies, athlete groups, public institutions, academia, media, fans, and business.
• The body must have a legal mandate, professional competences, and sufficient resources to operate with full independence when monitoring and processing violations of those standards.
• The body itself must be an example of best practice of governance in terms of stakeholder representation, transparency, accountability, and safeguarding.

The proposal will provide government officials and other stakeholders with knowledge, guidance, and tools to start establishing such a body.

To that end, the following steps have already been taken:

• In 2023, ClearingSport carried out a survey among almost 200 experts in sports integrity and crime, rallying massive support for the idea of an international integrity body while receiving more than 800 pieces of advice for the scope, mandate, legal status, main priorities, and structure of such body.
• In early 2024, ClearingSport formed an informal Advisory Group to further qualify the discussion and goals. The Advisory Group is chaired by Chiel Warners, a Dutch consultant, tax lawyer, former Olympian and former member of WADA’s Athlete Commission.
• ClearingSport was announced and discussed among a wide variety of stakeholders at the Play the Game 2024 conference from 4-7 February in Trondheim, Norway.

The main funding derives from Play the Game’s own budget, including a special grant from the Danish parliament and Ministry of Culture, earmarked for promoting good governance in sport. 

Play the Game does not see itself as the institutional framework for a future body and will redefine its role once the above-mentioned proposal is adopted and delivered.

Read the first ClearingSport report with input from almost 200 sports integrity experts here.

Another building block of ClearingSport is a report commissioned by former MEP Viola von Cramon, see www.stopcorruptioninsports.eu

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