115th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

2nd Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

All Bets Are Off: Gambling, 

Match-Fixing, and 

Corruption in Sport 

DECEMBER 4, 2018 

Briefing of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

Washington: 2019 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER


CSCESeal.EPS
(2) 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

202–225–1901 

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

@HelsinkiComm 

Legislative Branch Commissioners 

HOUSE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

Co-Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, TEXAS

STEVE COHEN, TENNESSEE

RICHARD HUDSON, NORTH CAROLINA

RANDY HULTGREN, ILLINOIS

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TEXAS

GWEN MOORE, WISCONSIN

SENATE 

ROGER WICKER, MISSISSIPPI, 

Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. MARYLAND

JOHN BOOZMAN, ARKANSAS

CORY GARDNER, COLORADO

MARCO RUBIO, FLORIDA

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

Executive Branch Commissioners 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

[II]

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

(3) 

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

[III]

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

(4) 

All Bets Are Off: Gambling, Match-Fixing, 

and Corruption in Sport 

DECEMBER 4, 2018 

Page 

PARTICIPANTS 

Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe ............... 1 

Stacy L. Hope, Director of Communications, Commission on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe 

David Larkin, U.S. Lawyer and Co-Founder of ChangeFIFA ..................................................... 2 

Alexandra Wrage, President and CEO, TRACE and Former Member of FIFA’s Failed Independent Governance Committee ................................................................................................ 7 

Declan Hill, Professor of Investigations, University of New Haven ........................................... 11 

Marko Stanovic, Balkan-based Former Match-Fixer (via teleconference) ................................. 13 

[IV]

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

(1) 

All Bets Are Off: Gambling, Match-Fixing, 

and Corruption in Sport 

December 4, 2018 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

Washington, DC 

The briefing was held at 11:31 a.m. in Room 188, Russell Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC, Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation 

in Europe, presiding. 

Panelists present: Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and 

Cooperation in Europe; Stacy L. Hope, Director of Communications, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; David Larkin, U.S. Lawyer and Co-Founder of 

ChangeFIFA; Alexandra Wrage, President and CEO, TRACE and Former Member of 

FIFA’s Failed Independent Governance Committee; Declan Hill, Professor of Investigations, University of New Haven; and Marko Stanovic, Balkan-based Former Mbenhurbatch-Fixer [via teleconference]. 

Mr. MASSARO. Okay, well, thank you all for coming, despite all the festivities going 

on today. I know it’s very busy on the Hill. So good morning, and welcome to this briefing 

of the U.S. Helsinki Commission. The commission is mandated to monitor compliance with 

international rules and standards across Europe, which include military affairs, economic 

and environmental issues, human rights, and democracy. My name is Paul Massaro, and 

I am the policy advisor responsible for economic and environmental issues, including 

anticorruption. I would like to welcome you today on behalf of our bipartisan and 

bicameral leadership to discuss a national security threat hiding just below the surface 

of the world’s most beloved pastimes—corruption in sport. 

It will not come as a surprise to many that sport has major geopolitical implications. 

As far back as Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics, authoritarian regimes have been using sport 

to shore up support for domestic oppression and foreign aggression. The Soviet Union and 

its Warsaw Pact satellites engaged in this behavior, and this tactic was even on display 

as recently as this year with the World Cup in Russia. However, these moments of clear 

geopolitical manipulation are the exception, not the norm. As you will hear from our 

participants, today’s international sports structure is an opaque web of deception, built 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

2 

to enrich a handful of top administrators at the expense of the world’s athletes, while at 

the same time facilitating the soft-power objectives of authoritarian states. 

It is given preference to and is under the control of those willing to engage in corrupt 

acts, including but not limited to bribery, doping fraud, and match-fixing, and has left 

clean athletes, low-income athletes, and those who care about fair scoring out in the cold. 

This corrupt structure has penetrated the political framework of multiple states, and 

wields an almost religious power, thanks to its control over the sports that so many 

around the world dedicate their lives to. 

This has led to an abundance of corruption, but a dearth of action. In 2015, the FBI 

broke the global silence on sports corruption by indicting over 25 top FIFA officials and 

associates for alleged decades-long racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. 

Named by journalist Declan Hill, who we are lucky enough to have with us on the panel 

today, as ‘‘one of the most successful pieces of American foreign policy since the Marshall 

Plan. U.S. law enforcement was seen by billions of people around the world taking down 

corruption that everyone else knew existed, but few would do anything about . . . ’’ 

Yet, despite this decisive action by the United States, corruption in international 

sport continues unabated. Moreover, for the first time, it may successfully find its way 

into the borders of the United States—a market previously thought more resilient to the 

corruption that has swept over the rest of the world. 

We have a truly distinguished panel with us here today to help us understand and 

address this pressing issue. We will first hear from David Larkin, who will provide us 

with an overview of the geopolitical implications of corruption in international sport. 

David is a U.S. lawyer and co-founder of one of the first sport anticorruption groups in 

the world, ChangeFIFA. 

We will then hear from Alexandra Wrage, president and CEO of TRACE International. She is an antibribery expert who was previously a member of FIFA’s failed Independent Governance Committee. She will speak today on her experience regarding the difficulties of fighting corruption in sport. 

We’ll then move to Declan Hill. Declan is one of the world’s foremost authors and 

experts on match-fixing and corruption in sport. He’ll speak specifically to the dangers of 

the globalized sports gambling market, and its potential to impact the United States. 

Finally, we will hear from Marko Stanovic, who was himself a match-fixer. He will 

speak to his experience on the other side of the law, and the incentives for criminals to 

engage in match-fixing and sports betting fraud. 

David, the floor is yours. 

Mr. LARKIN. I think this is on. Can everyone hear me? 

OPERATOR. You are the only participant. [Laughter.] 

Mr. MASSARO. That’s not true. [Laughter.] 

Mr. LARKIN. Thank you to the Helsinki Commission for having me. Thank you, Paul, 

for organizing it. Nice to see the fellow panelists. 

Today, I want to do something that’s almost never done in this world of global sport 

anticorruption. And I want to declare my conflicts. I want to talk to you about who I may 

or may not be working for, because it’s incredibly important to understand who people 

are if we’re going to tackle these problems. Here are my conflicts: None. Zero. I don’t work 

for a benevolent benefactor. I don’t work for a GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] state. I 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

3 

don’t work for a nation with a sport agenda to promote national interests via sport. I 

never have. And that means that I don’t have a horse in this game. In Washington, DC 

we see millions of dollars traded in the proxy fight that is geopolitics as sport. And so 

it’s really important that you understand who I am, and who I am not. I have no conflicts 

in this space. And it’s from that perspective that I’ll be discussing this today. 

Global sport. Something is terribly wrong. In May 2015, the FBI, the IRS, and the 

DOJ unleashed a torrent of indictments that suggested that sport was systemically corrupt. It had a huge corruption problem. Twenty-seven football officials were ultimately 

indicted. They were charged with wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering. Allegations were that up to $160 million in bribes were involved. But understand something. 

We’re not talking about over there. We’re talking about right here in the United States. 

The tentacles of these operations were in New York, Florida, Georgia, places you and I 

are familiar with. This is not a problem over there. It’s a problem over here. 

That said, the problem is everywhere. Let me illustrate that. There were allegations 

that Copa America, for 2015 to 2022, were—there were four contracts. And it is alleged 

that out of $300 million, a third of it was from bribes. How bad is the problem? In the 

leadership of CONMEBOL, indicted were three CONMEBOL presidents in a row. And in 

North America, we had two in a row. 

I think one of the really interesting illustrations of this, how powerful sport is across 

the world, is what happened with CONMEBOL HQ between 1997 and 2015. Do you know 

that if you are a police officer or a judge in Paraguay in those years, you literally could 

not set foot or arrest anyone on the grounds of CONMEBOL’s HQ? Why? They were 

granted legal immunity from the police and the judges. This is the world we live in in 

sport. 

But understand something. Scandal is nothing new. We’ve seen scandal in the 2002 

Winter Olympics, the era of doping in cycling in 2007, the 2010 controversial award of 

the FIFA World Cup and the allegations that attended that, the recent Russian doping 

scandal, that actually started, you could say, in 2010. So this is nothing new. 

But here’s the thing: It’s far from over. Right now, we have now—who are currently 

in the frame—and with questions over their heads: the head of the Brazil Olympics; the 

former president of the International Athletics Association; the head of the Olympic 

Council of Asia; more FIFA officials. This is still ongoing. 

My introduction to global sport was me and my partner, Oliver Fowler at 

ChangeFIFA, were just two guys who were a grassroots organization, who grow and 

shrink based on who’s interested in the issues we’re working on. We had a legendary 

player, Elias Figueroa. And Elias Figueroa is one of the best players in the history of the 

game. Pele said he was the best defender he ever played against. And we tried to get him 

nominated. So we went to the FIFA world. And we traveled. And we tried to get one 

nation just to nominate him for the office—to sit for the office of FIFA president. And 

what was amazing is, as you go around the world, for all the noise that you heard about, 

oh, Australia was upset, and the U.K. was upset, and the U.S. was upset—none of them 

would nominate him. But it was even worse than that. A moment of clarity came when 

we had the Babe Ruth of Chile, and not even Chile would nominate him, Babe Ruth, to 

even stand for the office of FIFA president. 

Our eyes opened with another event. About 9 months in, these guys reached out. And 

they said, Hey, you’re the ChangeFIFA guys. And we’re, like, yes. We tried to quit already 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

4 

a couple times. And we were thinking of wrapping up when this guy said: You know, can 

you guys help us? And we were like, All right, what do you need? They said, Well, we 

kind of want to challenge the status quo in our local FA [Football Association]. It’s got 

problems. Okay, what’s the problem? They said, Well, the last guy that challenged the 

status quo they killed. 

This is soccer, folks. This is about a ball. And they’re killing people? That, for me, 

was a moment, again, when things sort of crystallized. 

Now, let me tell you something, America. I’ve got good news for you. NFL, NBA, 

MLB, NHL, all America’s sports, they’re the good guys. American sport is healthy and 

doing well. It’s not perfect, but let me tell you something, it’s a really good place compared 

to everywhere else. 

Where is the trouble, then? The trouble is in the IOC [International Olympic Committee] world. And the victims of that world are U.S. athletes, U.S. administrators, and 

people across the world. 

So why is global sport so troubled? It’s because it’s a parallel universe that’s 

unaccountable and untouchable. It’s layered over every country in the world. In the 

United States, sport—global sport is literally immune, in reality and effect, from U.S. 

regulation and oversight. 

Society has made a terrible quid pro quo with international sport. And it’s this: We’ll 

provide you billions of dollars for your major events, and in return you owe us nothing, 

nada, zero. It’s a bad deal. Part of the problem is this huge imbalance between players 

and officials. In the United States, we have a really good, healthy balance between 

administrators and players. And what happens is, it’s kind of, like, a check on power. In 

the international realm, it’s gone. And that allows gross excess and overreach. 

There is an awful governance model in international sport. There are unsophisticated 

statutory schemes that, from a legal perspective, allow you to drive trucks through things 

all the time. It allows sport to be bent to the will of its administrators because there’s 

so many holes in the law. There’s failed self-regulation mechanisms, which Alexandra will 

touch upon. There are rampant election problems. We’ve dealt with so many of these. I 

can’t tell you how many times elections are awful. And we’ve fought these out in the Third 

World. And it’s crazy. You would not believe what passed for an election in sport. And 

the problem isn’t just isolated—it’s systemic. 

Another huge reason—and I would argue the number-one reason that sport is corrupt—the number one reason is because the sport justice system is absolutely awful. The 

sport justice system falls under—and so in this parallel universe you have something 

called the Court of Arbitration for Sport [CAS]. It’s not independent. It’s stacked by the 

IOC with their people. And I’m sure they’re good, well-meaning people. But there’s a 

problem. It’s pay-to-play justice. That means that poor people are locked out. It means 

that to get your day in court you have to file a $1,000 filing fee. And you say, Well, Dave, 

what’s the problem with that? What’s $1,000, $1,040, 1,000 Swiss francs? To 80 countries 

in the world, that’s more than 10 percent of their annual income. 

But that’s not the only fee you’re paying. That’s to just lock your place in. To hold 

your place in court, you have to come up with $30[,000]–$100,000. Folks, do you know 

what that looks like in the Third World? It’s impossible. And the good guys, when they 

come—and we’ve represented several of them—when they come up against corruption in 

their local FA, there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. Now CAS will come back to you and 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

5 

say, Well, Dave, we have legal aid. It’s arbitrary. You can’t rely on it. There was an athlete who was fighting their way through the system. They decided not to pay for a translator at the last moment. Have you ever tried to defend yourself when you have no idea 

what the language being spoken is? 

Let me tell you, I’ve got a letter that I want to read you from a colleague out in the 

Third World who is fighting these battles in CAS. And I said, If you could say anything 

to an American audience about sport justice, what would you say? And they said: Dear 

colleague, whereas the CAS considers itself to be an impartial and independent body, evidence suggests that CAS as an institution treats some parties as being more equal than 

others. As much as the sports community observes the autonomy of sport, such autonomy 

is susceptible to abuse. Unless the CAS takes on reforms, then the sports justice system 

will fail tremendously. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I offer to you that it’s already failed. And what’s worse, is that 

with the IRS, the FBI, and the DOJ having cleaned up portions of sport, there is zero 

ability to keep it clean—none. And so all the work of the FBI and the DOJ, is it in vain? 

If CAS stays as it is, absolutely. 

I want to talk about a really important topic that, as an American audience, it’s 

really important that you understand. And that’s the geopolitics of sport. You see, the 

Olympics sounds like a wonderful ideal. The goal—and the Olympic charter says this: The 

goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of 

humankind, with a view of promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation 

of human dignity. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t want that? There’s only one 

problem. At the highest levels of sport, sport has absolutely nothing to do with sport. It’s 

everything to do with geopolitics. 

To a DC audience I’m not going to explain soft power. That’s the game that’s used 

by nations. Is this a new game? Is sport being used for geopolitics a new game? Absolutely 

not. Hitler’s 1936 Olympics. We’ve seen it before. You know, you look at the pictures of 

that time, and Americans were doing the Nazi salute, Canadians, Britain. What narrative 

did Hitler sell? He sold, quote, ‘‘Sporting chivalrous contests helps knit the bonds of peace 

between nations. Therefore, may the Olympic flame never expire.’’ What was Hitler doing? 

Hitler was trying to get Germany back in the fold of nations after World War I. And you 

know what? It worked. Here’s what The New York Times said: The Berlin games put Germany, quote, ‘‘back in the fold of nations.’’ Mission accomplished. 

Joseph Nye, who came up with the term of ‘‘soft power,’’ warns us it can be deceptive, 

okay? And that’s something we have to be guarded about. If sport is geopolitics, then 

we’ve got to watch for deceptive soft power uses. Who are the countries that play this 

game? I think all of us know one: Russia. They’re excellent at it. But there’s others— 

Qatar, China—the new kids on the block are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, 

who are pretty poor at it. But who are the worst at the entire world at this game? The 

United States. We don’t even understand this game. Nobody in DC—thank God for the 

Helsinki Commission, nobody in DC understands this game—no one. And nobody’s 

watching out for it. 

What happens with geopolitical hijacking? What does that look like in the sports 

movement? We know what traditional corruption is, right? We—yes, okay, there’s traditional corruption. When you see geopolitical hijacking, Lawrence Lessig came up with a 

great definition of what he calls institutional corruption. And this is where you really see 

the geopolitics played out in sports entities. He defined it this way: Institutional corrupCSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

6 

tion is manifest when there is systemic and strategic influence which is legal, or even ethical, that undermines the institution’s effectiveness by diverting it from its purpose or 

weakening its ability to achieve its purpose, weakening either the public trust in the 

institution or the institution’s inherent trustworthiness. 

Folks, I got to tell you something—if you watch international global sports administration, this is everywhere. So where do you see it? You see it in the election of sport 

leaders. You see it in the treatment of sport corruption. Does anybody think that the Russian doping scandal and the way that WADA handled that was really equitable? Or did 

it seem to favor Russia a little bit? 

Mr. MASSARO. The World Anti-Doping Agency? 

Mr. LARKIN. Yes. Yes, oh, sorry. The World Anti-Doping Association. 

You also see it in these sort of turf fights. Right now the turf fight between expansion 

of the 2022 World Cup. You’ve got—I would argue that you’re seeing a turf fight between 

the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And it’s a GCC fight. 

There’s one issue I want to raise with you that I think is important for an American 

audience, because we’re seeing some participants in the U.S. market emerge for sports 

integrity. This last week, thrust into the media spotlight was an entity called the International Center for Sport Security. Its sister organization is called the Sports Integrity 

Global Alliance. The full name of it is the ICSS Sports Integrity Global Alliance, because 

they started it. The story was featured in France by an organization called Mediapart. 

But it really wasn’t the first time I’d heard of them. In 2015, Reuters reported that 

ICSS was allegedly 70 percent funded by the State of Qatar. But these really weren’t the 

first questions about these organizations either, because the first questions came when 

the Sunday Times did an excellent expose ́, and authors Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert 

wrote a book that I encourage everyone to read, called ‘‘The Ugly Game,’’ in which it first 

asked questions about the origins of the ICSS. 

Questions—and if you follow it, as I have, then there are questions about its purpose, 

questions about its independence, questions about its transparency, questions about its 

affiliation, questions about its conflicts, and questions about its track record—but you see, 

I don’t need media organizations to inform me about this organization. When they 

emerged I was watching them, because I was curious. I didn’t understand. You see, there 

were a lot of allegations of impropriety around the world of the World Cup, including that 

of Qatar. And what was weird is that when ICSS showed up, they never mentioned anything about it, as an anticorruption group. 

Where they really made me angry is when I had a player stuck in Qatar named Zahir 

Belounis. Zahir Belounis was a football player who was trapped in the kafala system in 

Qatar, held against his will. We worked with Human Rights Watch. We worked with his 

family. We worked with—there were others working on this issue. And ICSS was just 

down the road. And they were making great postures about, oh, human rights, and sports 

integrity, and duh, duh, duh. And they never helped our guy. And I never understood 

why. In 2015, they came to DC and they had an event. And they talked about how they 

were independent from Qatar. Okay. On the way out, somebody offered me a flight to 

Qatar for free. I didn’t understand that. 

In 2015, you saw the ICSS host events to legalize U.S. sports betting. In 2016, you 

saw the ICSS launch the Sports Integrity Global Alliance. Where do you find these guys 

today? Well, they partner with the Qatar Olympic Committee. And that entity is called 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

7 

Save the Dream. They’re found partnering with USADA, the United States Anti-Doping 

organization. They’re found at the White House. They’re found—this is also interesting 

to me—they have a U.S. sport corruption hotline. That’s an organization funded by a foreign government has a U.S. sport corruption hotline? But it gets even weirder. There’s 

a Broadway play, believe it or not, that features the ICSS. What? So if you have questions, 

welcome to the club. I do, too. But I think it really begs some questions. 

With regards to U.S. sports integrity, there’s a real vacuum out there, okay? It’s a 

new field. U.S. sports betting is brand new. We don’t have regulation in place. It’s all 

being developed and thought about here in Washington, DC. 

So here are some questions that I have, and maybe you do, too. Are we sure that 

we want to outsource U.S. sports integrity to entities or persons funded by foreign governments? How about where those governments have explicit agendas to use sport to achieve 

national aims? How about where those governments’ aims may be diametrically opposed 

to the best interests of the United States, U.S. athletes, or U.S. sport and sport-betting 

sectors? Example: Should we turn over U.S. anti-doping efforts and regulation of U.S. athletes to a Russian-funded anti-doping group? So lots of questions on that front for me. And 

it’s an evolving field. And I think we need to pay attention to it. 

Wrapping up, here’s what I would say: Why should Americans care? Why should anybody care in the United States about this stuff? It’s because U.S. sport officials and U.S. 

athletes are being victimized. U.S. taxpayers, the FBI, the DOJ, and IRS have spent years 

and vast sums to clean up global sport, yet there is no means to keep it clean—none. 

Sport is a tool of foreign governments. And the question I have is, is sport being used 

as an end-run around the Foreign Agent Registration Act? And, folks, there’s a—something Declan’s going to touch upon—is there’s a new, huge U.S. sport betting market that 

is a huge golden goose. And the question is, who’s going to fill the void of regulation? 

It’s time really, folks, for us to renegotiate—the United States to renegotiate its relationship with global sport. The only people who I would suggest can do it are the United 

States. The U.S. needs to take a proactive role. It needs to demand global sport overhaul 

of athletes’ rights, governance, justice, law, and elections. And Congress should legislate 

to protect the integrity of U.S. sport. 

Folks, I don’t really care about the details, but for goodness sake, we’ve got to act. 

We’ve got to protect Americans. And the last thing I would say is that any foreign government-funded or -affiliated entity seeking to regulate or influence the U.S. sport market 

should be required to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act to put on notice 

the U.S. sport community. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. MASSARO. Thank you, Dave. And thank you very much for that comprehensive 

overview, as well as raising some important questions and some potential policy 

responses. 

So we’ll go ahead and move onto Alexandra, please. The floor is yours. 

Ms. WRAGE. Thank you. It’s compelling to list people who have been banned or 

arrested in soccer lately. And it’s a long list. But I’m hopeful that we can also talk about 

some constructive solutions. Because of my own experience, I’m going to talk about FIFA. 

But most of this applies to the International Olympic Committee as well. I served in a 

pro-bono capacity on the FIFA Independent—it wasn’t—Governance Committee from late 

2011 through the spring of 2013, when I resigned. The IGC, Independent Governance 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

8 

Committee, wrapped up a few months later. I was the first compliance professional to 

leave, I believe, the compliance effort at FIFA. But others have quit or been forced out 

after my departure. 

I was not a soccer fan. I thought: This is a sports organization and I’m a compliance 

lawyer. How hard can it be to review their current processes, restructure their controls, 

and highlight areas for improvement, leaving the place better than we found it? It’s what 

I do at my organization, TRACE, and we’re pretty good at it. But I completely misjudged 

the situation. FIFA was resistant. Then-President Sepp Blatter and others showed flashes 

of indignation when it seemed that we might actually interfere. The place was rife with 

intrigue and conflicts of interest. They appeared uninterested in any serious reform, and 

resistant—really, remarkably resistant to external scrutiny. Because they had invited us 

in, I assumed they wanted us there. But it became clear really quickly that we were 

expected to stay on the outer edges of things and limit our efforts to a paper review. 

A few of our recommendations were ultimately adopted, but not in any recognizable 

form. They were watered down or cherry picked so that any cumulative benefit was lost. 

Most importantly, the structure didn’t change so the problems weren’t going to either. And 

as we know, they haven’t. Without robust structural safeguards, the integrity of the 

organization continues to depend on personalities—whether the leadership in Zurich or 

the teams of lawyers camped out there right now. FIFA and other international sports 

federations still lack meaningful checks and balances. They’re still plagued by conflicts of 

interest. And still accountable to absolutely no one. As such, there’s little to prevent the 

resurgence of old problems as soon as the world, and especially the FBI, look the other 

direction. 

A cynic might say that the structure was actually designed to avoid oversight. While 

I was on the FIFA IGC, it was still in vogue for then-President Sepp Blatter to refer often 

to FIFA’s desire to keep things in the football family, which doesn’t facilitate good governance, although it probably facilitates a RICO charge. It should be obvious on its face that 

a candidate for president who can offer huge sums to those who vote him into office, without regard to organizational need and without any meaningful controls around how that 

money is spent, creates an irreconcilable conflict and a fairly grotesque example of 

backscratching. 

And just as it isn’t the president’s money to award—it’s FIFA’s money, not the president’s money—the recipients don’t receive it based on any personal investment in the 

organization. Compare this to a corporation where shareholders are by definition invested 

in and highly motivated to make demands of the leadership, to hold the board accountable, and to ensure the protection of their investment, and to avoid waste and maximize 

their profit. They also have an interest in protecting the corporation’s reputation, because 

of the negative impact that a scandal can have on their bottom line. But in the FIFA scenario, the president hands out money, and makes the voters happy. The voters keep the 

president in power and continue the cycle. It is the purest form of patronage. 

If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to watch the footage of then-candidate Infantino 

on the day of his election, as he promises the football associations in the room more 

money than they have ever received at one time, if he is elected, and then a few minutes 

later he is elected. The controls are better than they were when I was there, but the 

problem isn’t just policing the handouts. It’s also about ensuring that they’re used in the 

best possible way to develop soccer—which is, after all, the organization’s stated purpose. 

Without shareholders demanding financial accountability, rampant financial waste and 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

9 

abuse of these expenditures shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s so much worse if it is likely 

that shareholders actually benefit from opacity. It isn’t incidental. They benefit from the 

opacity. 

Now, of course, FIFA doesn’t have shareholders, because it’s a nonprofit. But nonprofits in most developed countries are subject to rigorous oversight precisely because 

their tax-advantaged status is granted and maintained to the extent that they are fulfilling their stated mission. There are lessons learned from the corporate world which are 

applicable here. While multinationals have an imperfect track record, they do at least fear 

consequences for misconduct, which is a concern that hasn’t ever been apparent at FIFA. 

What can we learn from corporate governance? Let me just give two quick examples 

of improvements still around the edges that could have a modest, but immediate impact. 

First, a separate and independent foundation within FIFA to be set up to manage 

development funds to ensure that charitable contributions aren’t just steered to curry 

favor. Large corporations are increasingly moving to stand-alone charitable foundations 

for their CSR, their corporate social responsibility, in order to avoid the actual or perceived conflicts of interest. This ensures that contributions are not controlled by the same 

people seeking to influence, inappropriately, the beneficiaries. 

Second, truly independent board members could be recruited by an executive search 

firm. This was a theme we raised back in 2013, and it was completely shut down by FIFA 

at the time. When I raised it again over lunch just informally, Blatter was horrified by 

the idea. Major global corporations include independent, non-executive board members to 

avoid a too-clubby, comfortable setting. And that is exactly what you find at FIFA and 

what needs to be avoided there. 

These and other governance improvements would help, but they won’t resolve the 

overarching problem inherent in self-regulation, which is that conflicts of interest are 

built directly into the structure. FIFA’s structure was good enough—it was appropriate— 

in the very early days, but it has long since been inadequate for a multibillion-dollar 

sports and media empire. At the outset, there was no massive commercial event, no television rights. The organization has grown, but its governance structure hasn’t kept up. 

When corporations try to manage rapid growth in too many directions, they often end up 

spinning off into separate pieces or shedding sectors that no longer make sense for their 

core business. This makes a lot of sense for sports organizations too, including FIFA. 

Sports organizations generally set their own schedule. They decide where they’re 

going to have events, the number of events. They manage their own commercial side. They 

regulate themselves and their members. And they distribute the excess revenue, ostensibly in keeping with their overarching mission. FIFA could very sensibly restructure into 

four or more decentralized divisions acting under a single central governing body, supervising from headquarters in Zurich, much like the parent company in a conglomerate. 

These divisions could include one for event management, a separate one—a separate 

foundation to oversee the development that I described, the body tasked with technical 

regulations—that could be an entirely independent body—and then the regulation of the 

sport itself through a body that could depoliticize decisions, addressing governance, 

match-fixing, and doping. I’m going to come back to that in a minute. 

It would be important that these divisions or units had separate budget allocations 

cordoned off from interference from headquarters, but still subject to robust audit provisions and reporting requirements in order to ensure transparency. It could be located in 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

10 

different countries, perhaps different continents, to underscore their independence and the 

truly international nature of the organization. This would not incidentally loosen the 

stranglehold that Switzerland has on global sports and that global sports seems to have 

on Switzerland. As an aside, to my knowledge, no sports official has ever been convicted 

in Switzerland of any criminal offense. Given the sports community’s rampant misconduct 

that is almost impossible to believe. 

I’m going to return to this idea in a moment, but before I do it bears stating plainly 

that self-regulation has not worked for sports organizations. It can’t work. Self-regulation 

is particularly hollow when there is the high level of co-option that we see in sports 

organizations, where there are huge sums of money in play. Council members are paid 

$250,000 for three meetings a year. And that is separate from a very generous per diem 

that they get at the same time. And sports organizations, apart from the money, inspire 

a unique passion in people who want to be near the action for their beloved sport or sports 

community. When the IGC was first established and my role was announced, I was 

stunned by the number of people who reached out to me—complete strangers—expressing 

their enthusiasm for soccer, but also their revulsion for FIFA. But then a significant 

subset of these people asked me for advice on how to get a job with FIFA, even after vilifying the organization earlier in the same conversation. 

So taken together, the people we’re asking to regulate themselves have the ability 

to make extraordinary amounts of money, working on a world stage, with what most 

people consider a pretty glamorous lifestyle, all while engaging with a sport that they are, 

on the whole, pretty obsessed with. So even if new people arrive on the scene with the 

best intentions, the co-option process begins almost immediately. More junior actors are 

reluctant to speak out, fearful about their tenure and unwilling to risk what they consider 

an absolute dream job. Even at its worst, so many people just feel lucky to be a part of 

it. This overarching problem of self-interest on the one hand and co-option on the other 

means that even substantial governments enhancements aren’t going to resolve the structural problems entirely. We all just stand by and watch the continuing cascade of criminal 

cases on a near-weekly basis. 

So back to an idea that does something more than just pluck around the edges. The 

only solution that I believe will be truly consequential is the independent international 

sports governance body and that four-part structure that I described. This would be separate from political considerations and separate from the commercial division. This supervisory group would need legal acumen, and the political support from its host nation to 

impose controls, and accountability, and transparency on international sports organizations. We have to be careful to repel attempts to muscle in by high-level, well-funded 

opaque entities—like David has just described. And we’d have just one shot at getting this 

right because, frankly, the public is running out of patience with sports. 

It probably goes without saying that I’m speaking to this group in this setting 

because I feel strongly that the oversight organization should be based in the United 

States operating under U.S. law. The happy coincidence of the 2026 World Cup provides 

a rationale, but also an urgency. It would be sad if, after the U.S. Department of Justice 

has made so much progress cleaning up FIFA—or, at least, CONCACAF, that it is packed 

up and 2026 World Cup settled back into the international governance muck that has left 

so many stakeholders in despair. Wishful thinking is not a strategy. And betting—probably an unfortunate analogy in this group—betting everything on the integrity of the 

leadership at sports organizations has had mixed results. [Laughs.] 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

11 

There is definitely still opportunity for minor, incremental improvements in sports 

governance. And those are welcome. But there’s also an exciting opportunity for a really 

bold new approach, with the potential to restore public confidence in sport. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, thank you so much, Alexandra, for that inside look, very 

intriguing look, as well as your reform proposals. And you’ve brought it back to the United 

States now. So let’s go ahead and move to Declan, who will speak to the very specifics 

of how this relates to match-fixing and sport gambling. Thank you. 

Mr. HILL. America is a great country. Now, let’s make it better. 

On May 14th, 2018, six short months ago, one of the most significant social transformations occurred in this country. It is comparable with the repeal of Prohibition in 

1933, 85 years ago. The Supreme Court of this great country effectively allowed single 

waging sports gambling for the first time since the Chicago White Sox scandal in 1919. 

This is huge. 

As my colleague Tony, from Global Gambling Compliance, will confirm, if the United 

States follows the path of the United Kingdom, similar in language and culture, you will 

have sports gambling inside stadiums. Heck, you’ll even have the stadiums named after 

the bookmakers. Already, there is a channel being established 24/7 that will broadcast— 

not on sports. We’ve all seen that. There are a multitude of sports TV networks. This is 

simply and specifically set up to be the MSNBC of sports gambling—24/7, simply on 

sports gambling. 

In the conversations, in the discussions, the multibillion-dollar deals, the links 

between the Los Vegas bookmakers, the casinos, the major leagues, there has been one 

phenomenon which I will focus this conversation on. And that is the globalization of sports 

gambling. Globalization, we all know, has affected the travel industry, journalism, and 

numerous other industries. It’s hit the sports gambling world. I will now demonstrate this. 

Now, usually I do an interpretive dance. I get up and do a kind of a Blue Man thing. 

Paul Massaro, who’s organized this, said: Whatever you do, Hill, do not do your interpretive dance, got it? So—— 

Mr. MASSARO. Singing’s okay, though, if you want. 

Mr. HILL. So I have now brought a tape measure. That’s my personal interpretive 

dance has been reduced to that. And to give you a sense of how big this market is and 

how small the American share is in this, I’m now going to use this tape measure. Okay, 

everyone understand? Photo if you want. Hill clutching tape measure. Right. Fellow panel 

members grab tape measure across here. This table, by the way, to anyone mathematically challenged, is 12 feet long. Tony, can you come over here? 

Mr. MASSARO. Is it exactly a 12-feet-long table? 

Mr. HILL. It is a 12-foot-long table. [Laughter.] A quick round of applause for my 

chum from Global Compliance, a journalist. [Applause.] A long-suffering man, who’s had 

the pain of having to interview me not once but twice. The marks of the trauma are set 

on his face forever. 

Tony will now show you—he will now be my witness as to how big Las Vegas’ share 

of this 12-foot-long sports gambling market is around the world. You got it? Gentleman 

with the trendy-looking black tie, who’s a man of the world, you understand what I’m 

about to do? Good man. Okay, sorry, I don’t mean to draw attention to your tie. I’m just 

jealous. [Laughter.] Okay, Tony, are you ready for this? We are now going to demonstrate 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

12 

to this group the approximate size of Las Vegas’ share of the world sports gambling 

market. You ready, everyone? You ready, Tony? One, two, three, go. 

You see that? 

Let the record show, for my friend who’s doing the transcript, that my hand has not 

moved very far on this tape measure. In fact, it’s basically at the 5-inches mark on a 12- 

foot-long table. Thank you, Tony. Quick round of applause. Please, could you guys just 

give the man applause. The Las Vegas share of sports gambling is tiny. It’s basically a 

way of getting people to come into the casinos. The line—that is, which odds on which 

game, be it NFL, MLB, NHL, any of the major events in North America—moved offshore 

two decades ago. Las Vegas does not set the line in sports events in North America. 

Well, who does? 

Let me demonstrate on my handy tape measure the next measurement, to about 

here. Everyone got that? You all can see that? This measurement—that measurement is 

all the bookmakers that you’ve ever heard about. And let the record show that I moved 

my finger up to four feet. Those are the British bookmakers that you’ve heard of, like William Hill and Ladbrokes. It’s the European bookmakers, like Bet365 and Paddy Power. 

It’s the betting exchange, like Betfair.co.uk, the effective eBay of gambling. It is the World 

Lottery Association’s sports companies, sports lotteries, be they in Sweden or the provinces of Canada, or around the world. That is the on-shore market. 

The rest—and hopefully this tape measure will now swing across like that, in that 

dramatic gesture—are Asian and offshore bookmakers. They control, and they dominate 

this industry. 

Let me give you one example of the power of this market. Everyone, I think, in this 

room knows Adidas, one of the world’s biggest sports manufacturing companies. Their 

total gross sales in each—in one year is roughly $10 billion U.S. The gross gaming revenue for one of the largest Asian bookmakers, based in Manila, Philippines, is roughly 

$45 billion. Now, as Tony and any other experts in gambling will certify, those figures 

aren’t quite accurate, gross sales in clothing isn’t quite accurate to betting, but they’re 

similar. 

What does that mean? Well, this market that I’m trying to demonstrate across this 

table is estimated at somewhere between $500 billion and $11⁄2 trillion. It is an enormous 

pool of liquidity flowing onto sports events and games around the world. You can make 

bets on Highland Caber Tossing in small towns in Scotland. You can make bets on 

women’s second-division Australian basketball, games that any Australian in the room 

will testify attracts less than two hundred people watching the game. 

What has that vast pool of liquidity done to Asian sports? Well, there are a few 

honorable exceptions of sports in Asia that have kept their credibility, but they are exceptions. I’ll give you one example of a myriad. Sumo wrestling. We all know it’s an honorable, historic sport. Its history goes back several hundred years. But the national championship of Sumo wrestling has only been canceled twice. Once was 1945. And I don’t have 

to explain to anybody in this room what happened in 1945, a devastated landscape after 

the Second World War. The second time was in 2011, when my colleagues in the Japanese 

media received thousands of the texts between the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, and the 

top stables in Sumo wrestling who were match-fixing. Sumo wrestling officials said: 

There’s no point in carrying on. We have lost so much face, so much credibility, that we’re 

just going to cancel, for only the second time. 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

13 

Bear that image in your mind of a ruined, devastated credibility of sport, a bombedout reputation. The same thing is in Taiwanese baseball, which started with 13 teams. 

It’s now down to four. The same thing is in South Korean motorboat racing, in basketball, 

in baseball, in e-sports, and now in soccer where, very sadly, there were a number of athletes who took their own lives in suicide after they were exposed for widespread matchfixing. I could go on. There’s similar cases in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand. But the key point, the takeaway point, is that Asian sports fans are 

not idiots. And they’ve transferred their attention to European sports, to Latin American 

sports, and to North American sports. 

Ten years ago I faced many similar parliamentary committees in Europe, where I 

warned them about a tsunami of match-fixing coming to European sport. At first, they 

did not listen. I was the lonely Cassandra prophetess waving my arms, warning of the 

dangers. Now, after over 30 national police investigations, they have woken up. 

I believe there is a clear and present danger to U.S. sports from this globalized sports 

gambling market. And let us be clear where it will come. It will not come to the major 

leagues. They have billions of dollars of resource and integrity programs in monitoring 

this globalized sports gambling market. But there is a clear and present danger to minor 

league sports in America. The tens of thousands of athletes, the majority of athletes, the 

well over 90 percent of U.S. athletes who are in grave danger to this phenomenon. Tier 

two and tier three NCAA are under that same clear and present danger. And finally, most 

shocking of all, high school sports. I’m not saying that it’s going to happen now. I’m not 

saying that it’s going to happen in the next year, 2, 3 years. But it will inevitably come. 

Last week, in the Belgian Parliament, one of the top soccer officials testified publicly 

to three of their 15-year-old girl players—female players—receiving an offer to sell a game 

for 50,000 euro [$65,000 U.S.], to 15-year-olds playing a game. I had a similar experience 

when I went inside one of the bookmakers in Manila, Philippines, when there was $4 million U.S. on one game played by teenagers in Hong Kong. 

Ladies and gentlemen, on Friday is one of the most significant anniversaries in 

American history. I don’t have to remind anybody in this room what happened in 1941 

when people refused to wake up, when they refused to acknowledge that there was a new 

threat coming. In no way do I want to equate the dangers, the trauma, and the awful 

life and death situation, the tens of thousands of people killed at Pearl Harbor in the 

Second World War—I don’t—to match-fixing, it’s ridiculous. But I do want to say, this is 

our time. This is our watch. This is our moment to protect U.S. sport, to protect the ideals, 

the emotions, and the beauty of American sport from this new danger. It is time for us 

to wake up. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, thank you so much, Declan, for that colorful presentation. I’m 

very curious as to what the dance would have looked like after seeing the tape measure, 

but maybe we can get that at a hearing in the future, something like. [Laughter.] 

So do we have Marko with us? Will he be speaking today? 

Mr. HILL. Yes, I think so. Marko, are you there, brother? 

Mr. STANOVIC. Hello, everyone. Nice to meet you. 

Mr. HILL. Marko is under hiding at the moment. He’s a friend and colleague. He was 

a former match-fixer until a few months ago. And we’re just doing it in this way so that 

his identity is not revealed, and he’s not placed in any more danger. Marko, thank you 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

14 

so much for sharing. Everyone’s eager, particularly after my presentation which put most 

people to sleep, for you to cheer them all up. 

Mr. STANOVIC. [Laughs.] Absolutely not true. Absolutely not true. I was just amused 

by all this measure once you started. [Laughs.] So firstly, I want to thank you for this 

opportunity. This is basically a huge part of my life was match-fixing games. All this 

shady stuff which is undergoing in Europe, Asia, and most likely, without any doubt for 

me, is they’re going to fix U.S. courts as well soon enough. 

I’m 100 percent certain. I mean, whenever there is an opportunity to earn some extra 

cash, especially for those kids which are playing high school, for example, college basketball—[inaudible]. And they can bet hundreds, hundreds, even millions online or even 

underground bookies, and they can just earn so much without any—basically without any 

risk. This is human nature. We’re not talking about Americans. We’re not talking about 

Asians or Europeans. We are people. Everybody’s greedy. Everybody wants to earn something for their efforts. And just looking at them, so many people are betting on college 

basketball and saying: Of course. There’s going to be a point when they will be tempted 

to do that. That’s just inevitably, in my opinion. 

But how that starts—shall I first make an introduction for myself, what was going 

on in my life and so on, Declan? 

Mr. HILL. Yes, please. 

Mr. STANOVIC. All right. So years—maybe 5 or 6 years I was involved in illegal 

match-fixing across Europe. Across Europe, in the physical boundaries, across Europe and 

Asia in online boundaries, because most of the bets were placed in Asia. As Declan said, 

that’s basically the biggest market. You can place millions without even risking anything, 

because you’re totally anonymous. So how it went for me, I started by exploiting all the 

websites bonuses that were given for customer by basically getting other people’s identification documents and registering them, registering accounts on their behalf, thus 

exploiting the welcome bonuses that different bookmakers are providing to new customers. 

And from there, I ended up with a number of accounts, let’s say, 1,000, this would 

be a small number to reality but I’m not quite sure, so thousands—18,000. I had thousands of accounts. So syndicates—betting syndicates decided that I could be of use. They 

decided that I can help them out with placing some bets in some of the major bookmakers, 

some of which Declan also mentioned when he was talking about the U.K. gambling 

companies. And they saw that I’m useful for that. They saw that I have all—that I know 

all the matches, how to exploit how to be able to place the maximum amount of bets without tracing, because everything is anonymous. 

And from there, they, of course, wanted me—I wanted, and they also gave me the 

opportunity to do some operations of my own—helping them fixing bets, helping them bet 

in Asia. Afterwards I had my own collections in Asia, which apparently were even better 

than theirs. So I ended up with this huge network across half of Europe on tennis, soccer, 

basketball, handball, volleyball, even national teams. You can imagine women’s national 

teams in a huge world event. It’s absolutely fixed. They are just—it was just theater, 

nothing more. And there is no doubt—— 

Mr. HILL. Marko, how many games were you fixing a day or a week? 

Mr. STANOVIC. Oh, if we’re talking about tennis, I think I’ve mentioned that before, 

we had some really curious cases. Actually, sometimes we fixed more games than we could 

bet. So we were in situations like, ‘Hmm I’m not really sure that I have time for this 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

15 

game. We’ll just pay the player and we’ll just leave it. We don’t have enough. We don’t 

have enough. We’ll just give him $700 and that’s it. He’ll be happy, we won’t bet it, we 

don’t have time.’ So it could be, in tennis for example, only from this syndicate, some 

are—we could end up with 120, 130, 150 games sometimes per month. You can imagine, 

this is more than 50 players involved in this. 

Mr. HILL. So you’re saying, on average in tennis, about five games a day, more or 

less, around the world? 

Mr. STANOVIC. Oh, no, no. This is only from a single syndicate. It’s not around the 

world. This is only one single syndicate. And I’m not talking any BS. I mean, all this 

information, it’s revealed by the tennis integrity unit. They confirmed—like, half confirmed it that, yeah, we know that it’s true, but we really can’t do that much without the 

involvement of enforcement—of law enforcement. And law enforcement when asked are 

not really helpful because they don’t see anything in their—I mean, it’s a huge investigation. They have to invest a lot of funds. So basically there’s not a huge return for them, 

so why bother? 

Mr. HILL. And how many—how many of those tennis games roughly—were any of 

them based here in the United States? In any—— 

Mr. STANOVIC. Oh, there are so many based in the United States. I mean, it doesn’t 

matter. It could be based on something anywhere. It’s a person playing somewhere, ATP 

[Association of Tennis Professionals] Challenger or—[inaudible]—tournament, yeah, of 

course. I can—[inaudible]—I can think of three ridiculously fixed events which took place 

in USA. In one—— 

Mr. HILL. I just want to say, Marko, before you give those examples, not only have 

you been working with various police agencies and sports integrity agencies in Europe, 

your general findings were confirmed by the independent investigator’s report for ATP 

tennis in April of this year that describe a tsunami of match-fixing in tennis. So you and 

I know this is not controversial, but I just want to make sure the Americans who are 

listening—this is not some fantasy that Declan and his fixer friend are talking about. 

Mr. STANOVIC. Yeah. I have to add something to that. I was talking with one of the 

officers in the tennis integrity unit. And I was laughing that basically I have more 

information—however, of a single syndicate, keep in mind only one—than all of those 

reporting tsunami number. So you can imagine that the number is at least tenfold—at 

least tenfold. 

And then there was an ATP, I don’t know how much points it was, but that was ATP 

tournament which was fixed in two places in America. But two places in America. What 

is the reasoning behind that America is somehow immune to this? There is no logical 

explanation. And that’s totally—that’s not true at all. America is involved, although not 

that much with American players but more in taking place in tournaments. It’s already 

involved in some of the European sports—European, I mean those which are not officially 

sanctioned, like U.S.—like hockey, which is—American football, things like this. 

But changes will definitely come. I mean, so many scenarios that I can imagine, that 

I could envision, where this could go from a single tennis fix for $3,000 bets to the person 

who is fixing this event who is a player, to a few, like, 20K for a NCAA, college football. 

Mr. HILL. Okay. Marko, I’m going to end your remarks here, because there are a 

couple of people with their mouths open here who are desperate to ask questions, both 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

16 

of yourself and the other members on the panel. So thank you so much for speaking. Hang 

tight, because I think there may be some questions coming your way. 

Mr. STANOVIC. Of course. 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, brother. Hang on. 

Mr. MASSARO. So thank you so very much to Marko and Declan there for that discussion. I mean, the point that really stuck with me was sort of this idea that we fix more 

matches than we bet on. [Laughs.] So we’ll go ahead and move to sort of the Q&A phase 

of the discussion. I’m going to ask a few questions, and then we’ll open it to the floor, 

as well as Facebook Live, if there’s anybody watching that would like to ask questions. 

So let me go ahead and just ask the first one that’s eating away at my mind. And 

that is, is there this preventive type of fixing? Do you just go ahead and fix a game, just 

in case there’s betting? That’s what it sounded like? For Marko, since he’s the one that 

brought that up. I don’t know if Declan had anything to add to that, but—— 

Mr. HILL. Marko, did you hear Paul’s question? 

Mr. STANOVIC. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. 

Mr. MASSARO. Yes, well, do you want to—I don’t know if he can just hear you because 

you’ve got the mic in your computer. 

Mr. HILL. So say the question again? 

Mr. MASSARO. Is there some sort of preventive match-fixing? Like, you’ll go ahead 

and you’ll fix a match just in case there’s betting on it, as opposed to, we’re going to fix 

this match because there’s betting on it and we need to make sure it turns out the right 

way? 

Mr. HILL. Okay, Marko, I don’t know if you heard that the first time. But the question from Paul was are there any opportunities just to fix a game, even if there’s no betting on the game? 

Mr. STANOVIC. Even if there’s no betting? Meaning that you’d fix the game as 

reinforcement to them that only the team is winning and that’s it, or . . . ? 

Mr. HILL. So some context here. Sorry, Marko, I’ll just speak for you. First is that 

this happens rarely. This isn’t an everyday occurrence. And what you have to do as a 

match-fixer is you have to rig the market—the sports gambling market. And to rig the 

sports gambling market takes time, it takes effort, and it takes energy. So what he’s 

saying is that they had more players ready and willing to fix games than they had the 

resources to be able to fix the market. 

Mr. STANOVIC. Exactly. Exactly what I meant. 

Mr. MASSARO. Okay. 

Mr. STANOVIC. We basically had to deal with so many players we didn’t have time 

to take the opportunities of all the winning ones to bet on. 

Mr. MASSARO. There was more business than there was resources to take advantage 

of that business. 

Mr. STANOVIC. Yes. 

Mr. HILL. Exactly. 

Mr. MASSARO. All right. Gotcha. Okay. Let me ask a couple other questions. I guess 

my next question is for anybody that’d like to take it. We’ve heard a lot about the international sports structure. Obviously we’ve heard a lot about authoritarian regimes and 

how they take advantage of this structure. And then there’s transnational criminal 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

17 

organizations [TCOs]. I mean, for me, I think we’re really seeing a kind of globalization 

context where there are two narratives that are doing sort of battle everywhere in the 

world. And that is democracy, rule of law and human rights, versus sort of this 

authoritarianism mixed with corruption and crime. And it’s just who’s going to win in various contexts. And it doesn’t always look so great for human rights and democracy, I have 

to say. 

So in that context, where do we see interplay between kind of the transnational 

criminal organizations, the international sports structure, which in a certain sense functions like a TCO, and authoritarian regimes? So where does match-fixing, where does the 

kind of stuff that Marko finds himself—or had found himself involved in in his past—meet 

sort of the Putin regime’s ambitions, meet the international sports structure? It’s a big, 

loaded question, I guess, but I think it’s really important for the commission to kind of 

understand that. 

Ms. WRAGE. Well, I’ll just start with a very broad point, which is—I’m an enormous 

fan, unsurprisingly, of transparency. But the reason transparency is important, and the 

reason that we invest energy in trying to reduce corruption is because it does breed this 

incredible cynicism in the international community, including cynicism in government. 

People lose their confidence in democratically elected governments when they see high 

levels of corruption. The fascinating thing to me about sports is that it is overarching. 

It crosses borders and it absorbs the attention and energy of far more people—perhaps 

sadly, but in any event—far more people than are engaged in the politics of their own 

countries. 

So when you see corruption take hold at this extraordinary international level, it 

results in this demoralization and cynicism. And I don’t think the impact of that can be 

really overstated. When I travel, constantly as people in the international compliance field 

do, and when you go and talk to people they say: If we can’t even have confidence in this, 

then what? And so it’s a slightly unformed problem. It’s a difficult problem to really 

characterize. But there isn’t any question at all in my mind that the loss of confidence 

in democratic governments and the loss of confidence in things like ostensibly democratically managed sports, run in parallel. And we are not going to get either back until we 

reinforce both. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. Thanks. Would anyone else like to take a shot at that? 

Mr. LARKIN. Yes. I think one of the activities I’ve undertaken is trying to figure out 

how to get votes for a candidate for FIFA office and nominations. And what was weird 

is that as we calculated how we were going to get those nominations, one would have 

thought that Europe would be sort of a reliable ally for cleaning up FIFA. And to be very 

specific, with regards to Putin, if you’re going to play the European sports politics, there’s 

a factor that I would suggest you study. And that is where Russian gas lines go throughout Europe. Because if you want to know where Putin’s power in European sport is, I 

would argue that you could roughly correlate Putin’s power in European sport with the 

travel of Russian gas lines through countries in Europe. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. Declan, I see you writing furiously. Did you have something to 

say to that, or is that just one that—— 

Mr. HILL. No. 

Mr. MASSARO. Okay. 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

18 

Mr. HILL. I think Marko and I are just interested in protecting the Little League 

baseball, frankly. You know, 15- and 16-year-old people playing baseball. So I leave the 

high politics to David and Alexandra. 

Mr. MASSARO. There is one question I did have regarding the high politics of bookmakers, though. And that’s if you’re talking about a half-trillion to a trillion-point-five, 

you were saying, dollar industry, then you’re talking about some real political power 

potentially. So I mean in this particular context, where do you see sort of corrupt bookmakers and those sorts of administrators around the globalized sports gambling market 

exercising political power? Or do you see that at all? 

Mr. HILL. I think there’s one thing I got to make sure that is very clear. Often in 

the United States the conversation around bookmakers and fixers is almost as if they’re 

synonymous. The great majority, certainly in that four feet on my tape measure of bookmakers, are thoroughly decent business people. They’re just trying to do their job. They’re 

doing it well. And they’re the people that are actually victimized in a match-fixing. I think 

that’s all I can say in terms of that link between politics and bookmakers. 

Ms. WRAGE. No, I wanted to make sure before we moved on that we shouldn’t overlook—and David has touched on this—the importance of the events and the prestige, and 

the reputational whitewashing that can go on when a country hosts a major event like 

the World Cup. And when you see them back-to-back in Russia and then Qatar, again, 

the cynicism is extraordinary. If the purpose of FIFA is the good of the game, why isn’t 

FIFA determining where the game would best reward a World Cup, and then going allin to support that location to ensure that the World Cup is an enormous success, instead 

of just basically what we’ve seen is putting it out to the highest bidder, in a nefarious 

way. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. And a final question from me, and then we’ll open it to the 

audience. And that’s one of the big reasons why the United States and the commission 

in specific has become interested in corruption in sport is largely thanks to the incredible 

revelations surrounding the Russian doping scandal. I mean, that was just unbelievable, 

extremely high level, you know, went up to the minister of sport, the FSB, you know, 

unbelievable resources in order to dope their team in a secretive way. So I’d be interested 

in your thoughts on the connections between, again, this kind of authoritarian, criminal 

corruption governance machine and doping, and where doping fits into the equation. 

Mr. LARKIN. I’d start by saying that a lot of the talk—while Russia was first, 

Rodchenkov talked about how China was this huge manufacturer of doping substances. 

And so, you look at—and, you know, China should not be overlooked on the global stage 

in terms of anti-doping. I mean, Russia’s got a lot of the attention appropriately—and 

credit to the Helsinki Commission for the work you guys have done raising this issue— 

I think, though, that you’ve got to think about China, you’ve got to think about a lot of 

other places. You know, and I am on record for being a huge critic of the world antidoping system. We have some, and it actually plays into the sport justice system problems 

I talked about. We have a procedural due process problem in sport. 

For example, the IOC, when they were investigating the Russian doping scandal, 

what was the standard by which they unleashed these investigations? From a legal 

perspective, the legal terminology they used was natural justice. Well, any lawyer will tell 

you that natural justice means nothing procedurally, okay? There’s no safeguards that you 

have. So what the IOC basically said was: Dear Commission, investigate Russian doping. 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

19 

And by the way the standard by which you’re going to do it is anything you guys think 

is appropriate. 

How can the public have faith in processes which are so ill-defined and in organizations where, as Alexandra was talking about, personality is such a factor? And as we see 

from the statutory schemes, you can drive a truck through these things. So the arbitrariness by which these sorts of things are handled is part of the problem. And we’ve got to 

look not just at Russia, not just at China, but a lot of other places. And the World AntiDoping Association right now, I would argue, runs a pretty poor shop. 

Ms. WRAGE. If you believe, as I think anybody paying any attention to this hearing 

does, that sports can be a force for good, then the idea that either through shoddy governance, or match-fixing, or doping, the whole thing can be reduced to a sort of sad, cynical 

theater, puts everything at risk. And the three run in parallel. The governance is the least 

sexy, and I understand that, but they run together, and together are undermining public 

confidence in sport. And not without good reason. People should have less confidence in 

sport right now, when everything is for sale and doping ensures that the person who 

would otherwise win has not won, and then on top of that the rampant match-fixing. It’s 

a sad situation. 

Mr. HILL. If I can add two cents—I just want to focus this on America. I mean, we’re 

here at the power center of America. I don’t know what we can do internationally. I do 

know that there is a new day coming to America and American sports gambling. I don’t 

think it’s being debated enough. I don’t think that it is a partisan issue. I know that in 

this room there are Democrats, there are Republicans, there are independents. And it’s 

time—we have this moment to get this right, unlike the rest of the world. We can genuinely protect U.S. sport in a way that no other country in the world can. And it’s time 

to start that debate. It’s time to start it without commercial agendas and it’s time to start 

it without the political agendas that David Larkin has spoken about. 

Mr. MASSARO. All right. Thanks so much. Can we take some questions from the 

audience? Anybody here? Yes, please. So unfortunately, with this room, you’re going to 

have to stand up and go to the mic, if that’s okay. Sorry about that. 

QUESTIONER. Good morning. Great presentation. I’m Patrick Malloy, the director of 

the Master’s of Investigations Program at the University of New Haven. So I have a question basically for Marko and for Declan. 

In the world of the cyber financial crimes, there’s a lot of cooperation between the 

different syndicates. Is that cooperation the same in the match-fixing? In other words, 

Marko, you’re fixing one tennis match. Is there a conflict if somebody’s fixing the same 

match from the other side? Is there cooperation to make sure that doesn’t happen? 

Mr. STANOVIC. No. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. And sometimes it could happen 

that two syndicates are close enough to exchange information. But due to the huge 

volume, due to the nature of business that you don’t really want to reveal your corrupt 

tennis player, per se, there is no actual exchange. And often, it’s the case that two or 

three syndicates at the same time are fixing the same event for the same outcome, which, 

frankly, diminishes the profits for all those syndicates. 

QUESTIONER. Has it ever been the conflict where you’re fixing one player and another 

syndicate is fixing the other player so that that conflict—and somebody’s going to lose, 

and we know in the world of match-fixing, sometimes when a player loses when they’ve 

been ordered, basically, to fix, there could be physical consequences. 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

20 

Mr. STANOVIC. Yes. I have witnessed such a case. It wasn’t our event. There were 

two really powerful syndicates which can fix a volleyball high-level tournament. And they 

have fixed two opposing sides. So it was a huge problem when everybody realized what 

happened. These two syndicates, one of those, got to ask for some advice, because they 

needed to get in touch with the other syndicate. So the bigger one—the bigger piece won 

by basically there was a, like, 10 to 15 minutes when they had to stop the game in order 

for fixers to figure out what to do. [Laughter.] They had to take numerous reasons for 

stopping the game because nobody was sure what’s happening on the other side. 

Volleyball players were thinking: What are those doing? And the same. 

Mr. HILL. And just to make sure everyone in the room understands this, up until that 

moment—up until the table talk between the organized crime groups, both teams were 

trying to lose. [Laughter.] 

Mr. STANOVIC. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And everybody was wondering what is happening. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great question. Thanks, Patrick. 

Mr. STANOVIC. Bookmakers were not sure what’s happening because they’re seeing 

huge amounts of bets on both sides. So some of the bookmakers just excluded the match 

from offering. Others were really happy about it. So it was a huge thing happening. It 

was a first of a kind in my experience. And afterwards, I haven’t had such a situation, 

thankfully. 

Mr. MASSARO. Wow. So we either need to beat the crime, or we need to have so much 

of it that it’s fair again, is what I’m hearing. [Laughter.] 

Go ahead, go ahead. So another policy response perhaps. So, please, any other questions from the audience? Nothing on Live? Oh, yes, please. Sorry, again, you got to stand. 

Got to make you guys walk. I apologize. 

QUESTIONER. Since the Supreme Court decision in May, there is a struggle between 

state governments and Congress over who should regulate sports betting activity in 

America. What would you advise Congress, if they decide to become aggressive on this 

issue and regulate, and if they don’t—I mean, what would you advise states to do as far 

as regulation of this activity to maintain the integrity of the events? 

Mr. HILL. The ethics and integrity in sport is too important to be left only to sport. 

And I’m not saying that lightly. There have been case after case where athletes have been 

let down by sports officials. There’s an entire case of sexual abuse of dozens of America’s 

top gymnasts that were failed by the very people who were supposed to be protecting 

them. David has spoken about the international doping nightmare, where clean athletes 

are now handicapped. 

It is time for America to wake up. It’s time for American Federal regulators to implement a national independent sports integrity agency. It must happen at a national level. 

It must be bipartisan. We need that agency, and this is the time to put it in. It’s a bipartisan issue to protect U.S. sports in a way that have not been protected before. 

Mr. MASSARO. All right. Well, thanks so much. By the way, if we have any other 

questions, if you could say your name and affiliation. I know this is Patrick here, and this 

is Tony. You know, you guys—I learned your name today, so that’s great. [Laughs.] But 

do we have any other questions? Do you have a question? 

QUESTIONER. So, David, you seem like you’re pretty angry about the people in charge 

of making sure anti—the doping doesn’t happen, the anti-doping association, I think? 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

21 

Mr. LARKIN. Well, it’s a combination. 

Mr. MASSARO. Sorry, Dave. Could you say your name and office, if you don’t mind? 

QUESTIONER. Oh. My name is Hope Duran [sp]. I’m an intern with one of the offices 

of the Hawaii [ph] Delegation. 

What would you suggest is a way to change that? Should we just get rid of the entire 

group? Should we reform it? Should we make a group that’s parallel to it to, like, keep 

things in check? What do you think? 

Mr. LARKIN. Well, I think we’ve got to—there’s two things in play in anti-doping that 

are tough. First of all, WADA is not really independent. It’s both a sport governance entity 

and it’s a true government entity. It’s actually half-funded by the IOC, half-funded by 

governments. So, for example, Russia gives $700,000 a year. So part of the problem is, 

I think, philosophy. WADA has this philosophy—I mean, let’s take Russian doping. When 

the Russian doping system failed, okay, it was clear that Rusada was a failed entity. 

WADA’s response, what was it to do? It was to say, Oh, Rusada’s failed, Russian athletes, 

too bad. I think we have a philosophical problem in anti-doping, and that is this: That 

WADA is at the service of athletes. 

I cannot tell you how many times athletes are treated—this is unbelievable. But if 

you take away anything today that’s the most important thing: The reason that things 

go wrong, is because athletes are treated like second-class citizens across the world in 

sport. They are, across the board, second thought of, in the profession in which they 

endeavor, and was created, and they cause to happen. So when WADA—when Rusada 

failed, philosophically I think we should totally change the paradigm. There were good, 

clean Russian athletes who had nowhere to go. I was the weird American saying— 

defending Russian athletes and criticizing due process. RT loved me for a while. Why? 

Because due process, for Russian athletes, like everybody else I’d seen for 7 years, sucked. 

And WADA’s part of the problem, but it also plays into the other issue I talked about, 

the sport justice system. The sport justice system was totally unprepared for what came 

down the line in the Russian doping system. So in terms of WADA, we need to absolutely 

reform WADA, make it completely independent, okay? But we’ve also got to take into 

account the idea that this philosophical idea that this is—athletes are nation members— 

screw that. They’re athletes. If you’re from Azerbaijan, or Russia, or whatever, you’re an 

athlete. You’re part of the brotherhood, the sisterhood. Let’s treat these people like the 

allies that they are. Most athletes don’t want to dope. They want somewhere to go where 

they can prove that they were clean. 

And so you had Russian athletes who were good guys ostracized simply because they 

had nowhere to go. The other issue is that we’ve got to get to a place where the justice 

system no longer allows the victimization of people, and the procedure’s in place. So the 

due process—again, part of the due process considerations the Russian athletes were subjected to was arbitrary. So what happened is that you had entire classes of people basically condemned. And from a lawyer’s perspective, an ACLU guy who loves due process, 

you’re like, guys, it’s not about nations. It’s about individuals. So let’s treat them as 

individuals. 

So I think there’s a whole organizational due process, legal process reform that needs 

to take place so we get to a place where we treat athletes like individuals, and we treat 

them as customers of the anti-doping system. 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

22 

QUESTIONER. It is difficult to change people’s mindsets. Would you suggest vetting 

members of the doping prevention agencies, or—— 

Mr. LARKIN. Well, I think you can get to a place—I honestly think that the great 

untapped pool of talent in the world—which is unbelievable—are athletes. Look at people 

like Beckie Scott. Look at people like the athletes who’ve risen up and taken some leadership roles. Why don’t we empower athletes to look after their own sport? We don’t need 

a bunch of guys in suits and bureaucrats and red tape. Athletes have an automatic vested 

interest in their own sports. Let’s give them the power to do that. And I think philosophically that’s where we look for talent and we look for people who really care about the 

sport and really care about the athletes. 

QUESTIONER. Thank you. 

Mr. LARKIN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. MASSARO. Other questions? We maybe have time for one more, but we are getting 

to the end. If there are no other questions, we’ll close the briefing. So thank you all very 

much for coming. Really appreciate it. Look forward to staying in touch. 

Mr. HILL. Thank you. Thanks, Marko. 

Mr. LARKIN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. STANOVIC. Thank you very much, everybody. 

[Whereupon, at 12:57 p.m., the briefing ended.] 

Æ 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER

This is an official publication of the Commission on 

Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

★ ★ ★ 

This publication is intended to document 

developments and trends in participating 

States of the Organization for Security 

and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE]. 

★ ★ ★ 

All Commission publications may be freely reproduced, 

in any form, with appropriate credit. The Commission 

encourages the widest possible dissemination of its 

publications. 

★ ★ ★ 

www.csce.gov @HelsinkiComm 

The Commission’s Web site provides access 

to the latest press releases and reports, 

as well as hearings and briefings. Using the 

Commission’s electronic subscription service, readers are 

able to receive press releases, articles, and other 

materials by topic or countries of particular interest. 

Please subscribe today. 

CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER