GLMS urges further support for Macolin Convention

The Global Lottery Monitoring System (GLMS) has again urged more countries to ratify the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions to help strengthen its impact on tackling match-fixing in sport.

The GLMS management team attended this week’s CoE Hearing of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, where it repeated its calls for wider support of the Convention.

Also known as the Macolin Convention, the CoE’s Convention came into force last month, setting out a legal framework to tackle match fixing, as well as creating legal definitions for issues such as conflicts of interest and illegal betting and establishing new controls to help address poor governance and the handling of confidential information.

Italy, Moldova, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and Ukraine all opted to ratify the Macolin Convention, while a further 32 countries have signed the Convention.

However, speaking at this week’s CoE hearing, GLMS general secretary Giancarlo Sergi called for further ratifications of the Convention, emphasising how it will help with education and prevention activities related to manipulation in sport.

“Lotteries and GLMS have always shown their strong support to the Convention and look forward to further supporting the CoE with its promotion,” Sergi said. “Indeed, it is in the highest interest of the sports movement that the Macolin Convention is timely implemented”.

GLMS deputy general secretary, Vagelis Alexandrakis, added: “We congratulate the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE, and notably the rapporteur, for the initiative of this report, which we hope will send out a strong message to states across the world for more ratifications.

“As the Convention Follow-Up Committee will have to be convened soon, it is of significance that states ensure their participation in it with full voting rights from the very beginning.”

Last month, Sport New Zealand, the Crown entity with oversight for governing sport and recreation in the country, published a series of recommendations of how to improve sporting integrity, including a proposal for the government to sign up to the Macolin Convention.

Sport NZ said while the country supports the general intent of the Convention, it has not yet signed it as the obligations would entail a cost to New Zealand, and potentially legislative changes.

However, it added if a government-provided match-fixing education programme and central reporting point were established, “these institutions would go a long way to meeting these obligations, meaning additional costs were minimal”.