Lausanne, March 2 – A working meeting on Irregular and Illegal sports betting was organised yesterday by the IOC at its HQ in Lausanne. The meeting, chaired by IOC President Jacques Rogge, brought together representatives from the sports world, governments, international organisations, including ministers from Australia, France, Switzerland and Britain, and delegations from international bodies such as the Interpol, the EU and the UN, as well as representatives of the trade. For our Association, EOC President Patrick Hickey and BOA Chair Colin Moynihan were in attendance.

The purpose of the meeting, was to share knowledge, strengthen cooperation and take steps to set up a permanent system of information exchange.

Participants agreed to create a task force which will comprise members of the sports movement, governments, international organisations and betting operators,:assigned to work on a set of action points:

• The necessity and possibilities for governments, international organisations and sports betting operators to support the sports world in its efforts to protect the integrity of sports competitions;

• The various means to strengthen cooperation between themselves to fight more effectively against all forms of cheating in sport, particularly those linked to irregular and illegal betting;

• The various existing systems, national laws, self-regulating systems and implementation methods, in order to identify effective methods for cross-border cooperation;

• The various existing systems of enforcement, punishment and measures in terms of education;

• Appropriate methods of funding to support the efforts of the sports movement to protect the integrity of competitions.

“Todays meeting was the latest effort in an ongoing process that will grow to involve many more countries, international organisations and Olympic partners,” said President Rogge. “I am pleased with the fruitful discussions we had today and the progress we made in many areas, all of which will be communicated to our partners in the Olympic Movement in due time.”

The IOC first took preventative measures to tackle the problem of illegal and irregular betting five years ago and has been proactive in its fight ever since.