The Cabinet approved a proposal from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and Education, Culture and Sports, the signing of the Convention of the Council of Europe seeks to combat manipulation of results in sports competitions and whose purpose It is to protect the integrity of sport and sporting ethics, in accordance with the principle of autonomy of sport.
Its main objectives are to prevent, detect and punish national or transnational manipulation of sporting competitions, and to promote national and international cooperation against manipulation of sports competitions between public authorities concerned and with organizations active in the field of sports and sports betting.
It also provides that the fight against manipulation of sporting competitions must respect the principles of human rights, legality, proportionality and protection of privacy and personal data.
The Council of Europe recognizes the importance of research, effectively and without undue delay, the crimes committed in its territory and underlines the responsibility of sports organizations to discover and punish cases of manipulation of sports events by persons under its authority a requirement under national and international rapid and effective cooperation.
The purpose and objectives in drafting the agreement and the importance of combating crimes committed on European territory, is a compelling reason for signing by the Government of Spain, like the fact collaborate closely on this Matters between all member countries of the Council of Europe, and work to continue building a common European legal framework for combating fraud, both in the manipulation of sports competitions, such as on sports betting.
Threat to the integrity of the competition
The Council of Europe is aware of the magnitude that has reached alarming new forms of corruption that seek to obtain large sums of money from sports betting, manipulation of results or of money laundering, he has warned, through several documents of the dangers to the integrity of sporting competition.
In this regard, the Council of Europe has proceeded, over the years, to recommend to the Member States:
ñ The adaptation of the laws of their states, the purpose of that early warning systems are introduced
ñ The introduction of the legal prohibition of betting on competitions vulnerable to corruption
ñ The institutionalization of cooperation between authorities, sports organizations and gaming operators, both public and private.
ñ Conducting calls to work at international level for the introduction of binding measures to combat these phenomena properly.
These ideas crystallized into a Recommendation of September 28, 2011 on the promotion of the integrity of sport against manipulation of results, in particular against match-fixing.
Subsequently, the Secretariat of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport was invited to prepare a feasibility study on developing a binding instrument on the manipulation of sports results. The study concluded that the most logical choice was the approval of this international agreement incorporating preventive and sanctions aimed at repressing measures manipulation of sports competitions.