EC / IRIS - ITALY SEMINAR FIGHT AGAINST MATCH-FIXING

Transcription

1 EC / IRIS - ITALY SEMINAR FIGHT AGAINST MATCH-FIXING Date: 25 February 2014 Place: Roma (Italy) Participants: cf. appendix Main issues raised during the seminar: Level of match-fixing risk and awareness: - The match-fixing risk in Italy is considered as high by the participants; - Italy had to face many match-fixing cases in football in the past: Totonero (around 1980), Totonero bis (1986), Calciopoli (2006), Calcioscommesse (from 2011), etc. ; - According to participants, awareness about match-fixing issues is quite good but cooperation among the different stakeholders could still be improved. Who has to fight against match-fixing? - In Italy, public authorities determine a general framework for sport but respect the autonomy of sports organisations. The CONI (Italian national Olympic committee) plays a very important role in the country, being an umbrella for all the sports associations. The cooperation between the sports movement and public bodies appears to work quite well. The sports movement has already accepted public intervention in case of public order risks. For the representatives of the justice, sports organizations cannot fight against match-fixing by themselves: They need strong support of the public authorities, it is a major concern for the State. Several participants underlined the need to improve the communication level and exchange of information on suspicious betting flows between public administration, operators and sports organisers. - Italy supports the idea of an International convention to fight against match fixing and actively participates to EPAS works as country member of the drafting group. Match-fixing and betting: - Many participants have a good knowledge about betting and betting monitoring challenges; - In Italy, there is a system of licences (concessions) for offline and online betting. The fight against illegal betting is a key issue for Italy, especially because there are a lot of illegal shops all around the country. Indeed, even if the police closes many shops, some owners of these shops appeal to the court and open judicial cases (for example contesting the definition of illegal betting); - Some participants are in favour of implementing restrictions on betting (above all, risks on betting exchanges have been raised). 1

2 - For Italy, there is a clear definition of legal betting (official authorisations given by the State) even though the punters may not always be aware of these rules. This is important as by playing on the legal market the punters do not feed the illegal market, in which match-fixing arises and spreads over; - In Italy, the State strongly controls the shareholders of the betting companies (based on anti-mafia rules). Betting companies have to respect many security requirements. Everything is traced in Italy, so that suspicious anomalies can be identified. Some participants think that the Italian system is the safest one in Europe; - To prevent conflict of interests, online and offline betting licensees nor any of its partners, are prohibited to operate, directly or indirectly, sports organisations or activities or in any case other activities whose outcome are the object of public gambling (without prejudice to the law provisions for hippodromes), or to hold equities in sports companies or associations exercising activities whose outcome is the object of fixed-odds betting on sporting events. Measures to protect sports integrity: - All the participants give overwhelming support to education and information measures, insisting on the need to educate the general public as well. One of the objectives is to consider that match-fixing is not only related to football. Italy developed different awareness programmes on match-fixing, for the sports organizations but also the general public. - Several operational entities are already carrying out supervision and controlling activity. Among these: (i) the Unità Informativa Scommesse Sportive(UISS) is the entity within the Ministry of Interior created in order to fight corruption, illegal sports bets and organised criminal activities interests in the sector; The UISS is composed by representatives of CONI, UNIRE, FIGC, Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM), Police force; (ii) the Gruppo Investigativo Scommesse Sportive (GISS) is another entity within the Department of Public Security composed by representative of Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA) and Servizio Centrale Operativo (SCO), Police corporation sas Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale (ROS) dei Carabinieri and Finance corporation Servizio Centrale di Investigazione sulla Criminalità Organizzata (SCICO) - Guardia di Finanza; (iii) the ADM has set up a special unit Gioco Anomalo Scommesse Sportive (GASS), in order to constantly (24/24 hours) monitor sports betting data activities through a dedicated software (NB: the legal operators have to alert ADM in the event of suspect movements). - There has been a call for a data monitoring strengthening that could take place with the setting up of an international observatory; with strong credentials; - Besides the code of sports behaviours initiative, the CONI provides for a prohibition for all the professional/ high level amateur card-carrying members of national sports federations to carry out or receive bets referred to the results of the events organised by the same federations. The same policy has been adopted in the agreement with the athletes participating to the London Olympics. The national sports judges underlined sanctions adopted can use as determent for future cases. The CONI is currently developing a large integrity programme, including enhanced education and conflicts of interest rules ( sports rules/model for Life ). 2

3 - Italy introduced a specific law on sport fraud, Italian Law 401/1989, covering the gaming sector, illegal betting and the protection of the running of competitions. The purpose of the law is to fight against illegal sport betting which had showed increasing links to criminal organizations, particularly around betting activities. More generally, fight against organized crime and cyber criminality is a key issue in Italy, mentioned by several participants. The prosecutor from Avellino explained that a lot of money coming from Crime is regularly invested in controlling betting activities. Taken the example of Camorra, there is a strong interest in match-fixing and illegal betting, including physical threats against sports actors; - Art. 1 punishes with imprisonment from 1 month to 1 year and a fine from 250 to 1000 euro anyone who offers or promises money or other benefits or inducements to any participant in a sports competition organized by any association recognized by the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), the Italian Horse Breeding Union (UNIRE) or any State-recognized sports body and its member associations, in order to achieve a result that is different from that resulting from fair and proper competition. Similar penalties are defined for passive actions, covering those who request or accept benefits; - Art. 3 includes an obligation to report the facts concerning the criminal offences referred to in Art. 1; - Several participants maintained that the 1989 law could be improved in the short run (especially taking into account new links between local organized 3 people or more - crime and international organized crime). The relative impunity in this sector makes it very attractive, so that reinforced penalties would favor deterrence, as well as a larger perimeter (athletes deciding autonomously to fix a game are currently not concerned by the law). Organized crime s obsession is to provide services regarding economic profitability and to launder money; - Tthe law 88/2009 (Legge Comunitaria 2008), art. 24 has provided for a new legal framework for online gambling activities and has enhanced prevention measures to avoid online illegal gambling and betting activities;. - The so called stability law 2011 (Legge 220/2010) has further strengthened prevention measures to avoid organised criminal infiltrations in the gambling sector; - Italian government is willing to assume a guiding role and forward-looking approach in order to strengthen international match-fixing contrast during the next Italian Presidency of the European Union Council.There has been a common agreement for the need of an international standardization on these legal frameworks to fight against match-fixing. 3

4 Measures Betting: Fight against illegal betting Betting: Authorised list of bets Betting: Other restrictions (pay out, stakes) Sport: Education programs Betting prohibition for sport actors Conflicts of interest: Disclosure of inside information Integrity officer Sport: Prohibition to control betting operators Criminal offence & Sanctions Betting: Prohibition to control sports when bets are offered Contract between sport and betting Intelligence and monitoring YES Existing (Yes / No) YES List of sports, competitions and bets determined by ADM: programmed bets and additional bets on request for legal operators after ADM approval YES Maximum winnings are capped YES For many sports through CONI s coordination (at least: basketball, football, hockey, kayak, rowing, tennis, volleyball,, (extensive education programme for football 79 clubs trained up to now, including young 15- players)) YES Responsible guidelines and sanctions determined by the CONI (at the moment only some sports follow these guidelines) IDEM YES For football, in consideration for major sports YES Licensee s obligations. YES Specific law on sport fraud (law n 401/1989) YES Licensee s obligations and CONI regulations NO compulsory YES (for football through SportRadar since 2010/ BFDS) and through ELMS/ESSA for betting operators Next steps and recommendations: - Italy may possibly look into the 3 following priority items: o Implementation of an operational task force not only focused on football (including representatives from the CONI, FIGC, the Police, the Justice and betting operators). The current Information Unit that unites these actors could receive more operational capacities. o Development of a harmonised national Code of sport including conflicts of interest rules for all sports (may be through the coordination of the CONI): prohibition to bet for sport actors on their own competition, disclosure of inside information, etc. o Foster enhanced cooperation between sports organisations and the legal betting industry about betting expertise and betting related risks. 4

5 APPENDIX LIST OF SPEAKERS Giovanni Emilio Maggi Director - Istitutional Relations and Public Affairs - SISAL S.p.A. giovanni.maggi@sisal.it Gennaro Schettino Director - Istitutional Relations and Public Affairs - Gtech S.p.A. gennaro.schettino@gtech.com Bernadette Lobjois General secretary EL info@european-lotteries.org Pim Verschuuren Project coordinator, IRIS verschuuren@iris-france.org Christian Kalb Director, CK Consulting ckalb@ckconsulting.fr Giovanni Panebianco Direttore Ufficio per lo Sport - Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri ufficiosport@governo.it Gen. Luigi Curatoli Direttore Servizio Analisi Criminale della Direzione Centrale della Polizia Criminale - Dipartimento della P.S. Ministero degli Interni luigi.curatoli@interno.it Giancarlo Abete Presidente FIGC Federazione Italiana Gioco Calcio figc.presidenzafed@figc.it Roberto Fanelli Direzione centrale gestione tributi e monopolio giochi presso l Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli - AAMS monopoli.giochi@aams.it Luca Turchi 5

6 Direzione centrale gestione tributi e monopolio giochi, Ufficio Enalotto presso l'agenzia delle dogane e dei monopoli - AAMS luca.turchi@aams.it Filippo Grassia Giornalista sportivo filippo.grassia@gmail.com Ciro Angelillis Procuratore della Repubblica di Bari ciro.angelillis@giustizia.it Rosario Cantelmo Procuratore della Repubblica di Avellino rosario.cantelmo@giustizia.it Maurizio Greco Membro della Corte di giustizia federale FIGC Avvocato dello Stato maurizio.greco@avvocaturastato.it Luigi Medugno Avvocato specializzato nel diritto dello sport luigimedugno@ordineavvocatiroma.org Massimo Zaccheo Presidente TNAS tribunale.arbitrale@coni.it Luciano Buonfiglio Vice Presidente CONI - Presidente Federale Federcanoa presidente@federcanoa.it Andrea Abodi Presidente - Lega Serie B presidenzaserieb@lega-calcio.it Emanuele Paolucci Integrity Officer Lega Pro segreteria@lega-pro.com - comunicazione@lega-pro.com Massimo Passamonti Presidente Federazione Sistema Gioco Italia SGI - Confindustria passamonti@sisal.it 6

7 Gianni Merlo Presidente AIPS 7