Recommendation for a COUNCIL DECISION Authorising the European Commission to participate, on behalf of the EU, in the negotiations for an international convention of the Council of Europe to combat the manipulation of sports results
Date: 2012-11-13
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: fraud, game of chance, international convention, professional sport, sporting event

EUROPEAN 
COMMISSION 

Brussels, 13.11.2012  
COM(2012) 655 final 

Recommendation for a 

COUNCIL DECISION 

Authorising the European Commission to participate, on behalf of the EU, in the 
negotiations for an international convention of the Council of Europe to combat the 
manipulation of sports results 

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EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM 

1. 

BACKGROUND AND POLITICAL CONTEXT 

Match-fixing is unanimously considered to be one of the major threats facing contemporary 
sport. Match-fixing undermines the values of sport such as integrity, fair play and respect for 
others.  It  risks  alienating  fans  and  supporters  from  organised  sport,  a  sector  that  represents 
almost  2%  of  EU  Gross  Value  Added.  Moreover,  match-fixing  often  involves  organised 
criminal networks active on a global scale. It is a problem that has now become a priority for 
public authorities, the sport movement and law enforcement agencies worldwide. 

The  2011  Commission  Communication  on  Developing  the  European  Dimension  in  Sport 
explicitly recognises match-fixing as a threat which violates the ethics and integrity of sport. 
The issue of match-fixing was further addressed in 2011 in the Commission's Green Paper on 
Online Gambling, in the Commission Communication on Fighting Corruption in the EU and 
in  the  Commission  Communication  Towards  a  comprehensive  European  framework  for 
online gambling. 

The  European  Parliament  adopted  in  June  2011  a  Written  Declaration  on  combating 
corruption  in  European  sport  and,  in  February  2012,  a  Resolution  on  Developing  the 
European Dimension in Sport calling for increased international cooperation to tackle match-
fixing.  On  29  November  2011,  the  EU  Council  adopted  Conclusions  on  combating  match-
fixing  which  invite  the  Commission,  Member  States  and  non-governmental  stakeholders  to 
cooperate and take action at different levels to improve the way match-fixing is addressed in 
the EU. 

The  International  Olympic  Committee  (IOC)  launched  in  March  2011  a  Working  Group 
composed  of  high-level  representatives  of 
the  sport  movement,  public  authorities, 
international organisations and betting operators to propose ways of fighting against irregular 
and  illegal  sports  betting,  with  a  roadmap  for  follow-up  action  adopted  in  Lausanne  on  2 
February 2012. 

On  28  September  2011,  the  Council  of  Europe's  Committee  of  Ministers  adopted  a 
Recommendation  on  the  promotion  of  integrity  of  sport  against  manipulation  of  results 
notably match-fixing. The Recommendation invites the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport 
(EPAS)  to  carry  out  a  feasibility  study  on  a  possible  international  legal  instrument  for  the 
prevention  and  repression  of  match-fixing.  On  15  March  2012,  the  Council  of  Europe's 
Conference of Ministers Responsible for Sport, meeting in Belgrade, took note of the study's 
conclusions and invited EPAS to launch the negotiations, in coordination with the EU, on a 
possible international legal instrument (Convention) against the manipulation of sports results, 
notably  match-fixing.  On  13  June  2012,  the  Council  of  Europe's  Committee  of  Ministers 
endorsed  this  invitation.  In  the  course  of  the  summer  of  2012,  EPAS  sent  invitations  to  the 
countries that are parties to the European Cultural Convention to invite them to express their 
interest  in  participating  in  the  negotiations  for  a  draft  Convention  of  the  Council  of  Europe 
against the manipulation of sports results.  

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2. 

A POSSIBLE COUNCIL OF EUROPE CONVENTION AGAINST MATCH-FIXING: POSSIBLE 
CONTENT AND TIMETABLE 

On the basis of the feasibility study carried out by EPAS, the possible content of the future 
Council of Europe (CoE) Convention may be structured as follows: 

1. 

Prevention 

(a)  Domestic co-ordination 

(b)  Promotion and support of measures to be taken by the sports movement 

(c)  Setting up a framework for the betting market 

(d)  Promotion of measures to be taken by betting operators 

2. 

International co-operation 

(e)  Public authorities – sport 

(f)  Public authorities (betting regulators) – betting operators 

(g) 

International co-operation between judicial or law enforcement authorities 

(h)  Tripartite consultations 

3. 

Sanctions 

(i)  Combination of disciplinary, administrative and criminal sanctions 

(j)  Disciplinary 

(k)  Administrative 

(l)  Criminal law 

(m)  Jurisdiction 

4. 

Law enforcement 

(n) 

Investigation 

(o)  Cybercrime 

5. 

Follow-up 

(p)  Monitoring 

(q)  Convention committee 

One  of  the  major  issues  in  the  fight  against  match-fixing  at  EU  or  international  level  is  the 
need  to  ensure  coordination  of  the  different  stakeholders  involved  in  the  field,  in  particular 
public authorities, law enforcement agencies, gambling regulators, the sport movement in all 
its components, and betting operators (lotteries and private operators). The main added value 

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of a CoE Convention  against match-fixing would consist  in  setting  up  a  platform  for  cross-
border and cross-sector cooperation involving all the relevant actors. A significant advantage 
of a CoE Convention would consist in its monitoring and follow-up structures, based on the 
model of existing standing committees for CoE Conventions in the field of sport (anti-doping, 
spectator  violence).  These  structures  should  be  open  to  all  relevant  stakeholders  and  they 
should  become  the  forum  where  discussions  are  held  on  the  implementation  of  the 
Convention and on progress in the fight against match-fixing in Europe. 

Another important advantage of the future Convention would consist in its openness to non-
European  countries:  all  countries  will  be  able  to  sign  and  ratify  the  Convention  (by  way  of 
example,  Canada  and  Australia  are  currently  parties  to  the  CoE  Anti-Doping  Convention). 
This  aspect  is  crucial  since  world-wide  cooperation,  notably  with  countries  where  sports 
betting is widespread such as South-East Asian countries, is considered an essential element 
in effectively fighting trans-national organised crime networks involved in match-fixing and 
operating in different continents. 

The  proposed  Convention  would  not  be  an  instrument  to  achieve  harmonisation  of  the 
national  legislations  of  the  signatory  parties.  Although  the  issue  of  establishing  an  agreed 
definition  of  match-fixing  and  of  adopting  a  set  of  effective,  dissuasive  and  proportionate 
sanctions  would  be  mentioned  in  the  Convention,  the  wording  of  the  relevant  provisions 
would be phrased in such a way as to leave a degree of flexibility for the signatory parties to 
implement these provisions. 

The  precise  content,  structure  and  scope  of  the  text  of  the  Convention  are  at  present  rather 
theoretical as they will be the subject of the forthcoming negotiations. 

A  drafting  group,  composed  of  representatives  of  the  member  states  involved  in  the 
negotiations, will be in charge of preparing the text of the Convention. Documents circulated 
by the Council of Europe explicitly foresee that it will be open to a representative of the EU. 
The drafting group met for the first time for exploratory talks in Strasbourg on 9-11 October 
2012. The Commission attended this first exploratory meeting as an ad-hoc observer. EPAS 
will perform the role of a secretariat. EPAS foresees a series of seven three-day meetings of 
the  drafting  group  between  October  2012  and  December  2013,  with  the  objective  of 
presenting the Convention to the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers for signature in 
2014. 

3. 

THE ROLE OF THE EU IN THE FIGHT AGAINST MATCH-FIXING 

The topic of match-fixing is relatively new on the EU agenda for sport; the initiatives related 
to it are therefore very recent. At the level of the Commission, the involvement in the fight 
against match-fixing can be examined under three different angles, corresponding to the three 
main aspects of this problem: 

Sporting aspect: As laid down in Article 165 of the Treaty, one of the objectives of EU action 
in the field of sport is to develop the European dimension in sport by promoting fairness in 
sporting competitions and by protecting the moral integrity of sportspeople. The Commission 
has  taken  a  first  concrete  initiative  in  this  field  by  including  in  the  Call  for  Proposals 
implementing the 2012 Preparatory Action 'European Partnership on Sports' a priority line for 
projects  focusing  on  the  prevention  of  match-fixing  episodes  through  the  education  and 
information  of  relevant  stakeholders,  notably  athletes,  referees,  match  officials  and  sports 
administrators.  The  objective  of  the  financial  support  to  be  given  through  this  call  is  to 

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strengthen the preventive side of the fight against match-fixing by exchanging good practices. 
Combating match-fixing is also mentioned as one of the objectives of the Sport Chapter of the 
proposed  'Erasmus  for  All'  programme,  which  should  allow  supporting  similar  actions  in  a 
structured  way  after  2014.  In  addition  to  providing  financial  assistance,  the  Commission  is 
cooperating closely with external stakeholders (notably the IOC and the Council of Europe) in 
identifying ways to tackle match-fixing at European and international level. The Commission 
also acts as secretariat to the EU Expert Group on Good Governance in Sport, established on 
the basis of the Council Resolution on an EU Work Plan for Sport of May 2011. The Expert 
Group produced recommendations for further consideration by the Council Working Party on 
Sport in June 2012. 

Gambling and betting aspect: Match-fixing is not necessarily linked to sports betting. 
Nonetheless, the combination of unregulated sports betting and match-fixing is an existing 
threat to sport events, largely due to individuals or criminal networks that use sports betting to 
generate revenue and/or for money laundering purposes. Issues related to the integrity of sport 
were part of the Green Paper on Online Gambling, a public consultation that the Commission 
carried out in 2011. Around 250 responses were received from various stakeholders including 
sport bodies. The consultation was complemented by five thematic work-shops in the course 
of 2011, one of which, held on 10 May 2011, focused particularly on on-line gambling and 
sport integrity (with a focus on match-fixing). As a follow-up to the Green Paper, the 
Commission adopted the 23 October 2012 the Communication “Towards a comprehensive 
European framework for online gambling” (COM(2012) 596 final). The protection of the 
integrity of sport against match-fixing is one of the priorities presented in the Communication 
with a proposed Action Plan, which includes the participation of the Commission in the work 
of the Council of Europe on a possible Convention against manipulation of sports results,. 

Corruption aspect: match-fixing is a form of corruption and as such is sanctioned by national 
criminal laws. The Commission is implementing the anti-corruption package adopted in 2011 
which is centred on improving monitoring and evaluation of anti-corruption efforts, notably 
by establishing an EU Anti-Corruption Report through which the Commission will assess on a 
regular  basis  various  outstanding  aspects  related  to  corruption  and  capacity  to  control 
corruption  in  the  EU  Member  States.  The  Report  could  potentially  cover  any  outstanding 
issues related to corruption, including match-fixing in sport. The EU Anti-Corruption Report, 
accompanied  by  country  analyses  for  each  Member  State, 
tailor-made 
recommendations, will be published by the Commission every two years starting in 2013. In 
parallel,  the  Commission  is  currently  considering  the  modalities  of  possible  participation  of 
the  EU  in  the  Council  of  Europe's  Group  of  States  against  Corruption  (GRECO),  which  is 
supposed to bring added value to the EU fight against corruption. 

including 

The  European  Parliament  touched  upon  the  issue  of  match-fixing,  especially  betting  related 
match-fixing,  in  its  2009  report  on  the  integrity  of  online  gambling  (A6-0064/2009).  The 
Parliament also dealt in more detail with the issue in its 2011 report on online gambling in the 
Internal Market (A7-0342/2011), in which it mentioned issues related to cross-border police 
and judicial cooperation, cooperation between organisers of sports competitions and gambling 
operators, establishment of national networks and contact points to deal with cases of match-
fixing and the creation of a definition of match-fixing at EU level. Finally, the issue of match-
fixing  was  also  addressed  in  the  European  Parliament’s  2012  report  on  the  European 
Dimension  in  Sport  (A7-0385/2011),  in  which  the  Parliament  calls  on  sport  federations  to 
work closely with Member States in order to protect the integrity of sport. 

The Council dealt for the first time with the fight against match-fixing in the EU Work Plan 
for Sport 2011-2014, adopted in May 2011, in which the integrity of sport, in particular the 

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fight  against  match-fixing,  was  set  out  as  a  priority  theme  for  the  period  2011-2014.  In 
addition,  Council  adopted  in  November  2011  conclusions  on  combating  match-fixing,  in 
which  Member  States  and  stakeholders  were  invited  to  encourage  the  development  of 
educational  programmes  and  ensure  close  cooperation  between  all  interested  parties.  The 
Council  Working  Party  on  Sport  is  currently  discussing  the  text  of  draft  conclusions  on 
establishing  a  strategy  to  combat  the  manipulation  of  sports  results,  to  be  adopted  in 
November 2012. 

The  two  EU  agencies  in  charge  of  cross-border  judicial  and  police  cooperation,  EUROPOL 
and  EUROJUST,  are  also  actively  involved  in  the  fight  against  match-fixing.  Whereas 
cooperation  of  law  enforcement  agencies  at  EU  level  in  the  field  of  sport  was  traditionally 
focused on the issue of spectator violence, match-fixing has emerged as a new area for cross-
border cooperation in the last two years. At present, two cases are open; a Joint Investigation 
Team (JIT) involving four EU countries (HU, DE, FI, AT) is in place to deal with these cases. 
The  reason  given  by  EUROPOL  and  EUROJUST  for  their  involvement  in  cases  of  match-
fixing is that match-fixing often implies serious organised crime. 

All these elements point in a single direction: the fight against match-fixing has acquired the 
status  of  a  priority  in  different  policy  areas  (sport  policy,  supervision  of  gambling  markets, 
fight against corruption) at EU level, and public attention is likely to increase following the 
recent episodes of corruption at various levels in the world of sport. 

Since the envisaged Convention does not aim at harmonising criminal law provisions in the 
signatory  countries  nor  at  achieving  harmonisation  in  other  fields  such  as  gambling  and 
betting laws, and since, based on article 6 TFEU, the EU only has a competence to carry out 
action to support, coordinate or supplement actions of the Member States in the field of sport, 
it is proposed that the EU participates in the forthcoming negotiations alongside its Member 
States. The proposed participation in the negotiations has no impact on the EU budget. 

The Commission therefore recommends to the Council: 

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– 

– 

To  adopt  the  attached  decision  authorising  the  participation  of  the  European 
Commission, on behalf of the EU, in the negotiations for an international convention 
of the Council of Europe to combat the manipulation of sports results; 

To issue the negotiating directives attached to that decision; 

To designate a special committee in consultation with which the negotiations will be 
conducted.

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Recommendation for a 

COUNCIL DECISION 

Authorising the European Commission to participate, on behalf of the EU, in the 
negotiations for an international convention of the Council of Europe to combat the 
manipulation of sports results 

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, 

Having  regard  to  the  Treaty  on  the  Functioning  of  the  European  Union,  and  in  particular 
Article 218(3) and (4) thereof, 

Having regard to the recommendation from the European Commission, 

Whereas: 

Negotiations  should  be  opened  on  the  preparation  of  an  international  convention  of  the 
Council of Europe to combat the manipulation of sports results, 

The Union should participate in these negotiations.  

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:  

Article 1 

The  Commission  is  hereby  authorised  to  negotiate,  on  behalf  of  the  European  Union,  an 
international  convention  of  the  Council  of  Europe  to  combat  the  manipulation  of  sports 
results. 

The negotiating directives are set out in the Annex. 

Article 2 

Article 3 

The negotiations shall be conducted in consultation with [name of the special committee to be 
inserted by the Council]. 

Article 4 

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This Decision is addressed to the Commission. 

Done at Brussels,  

For the Council 
The President 

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ANNEX  

DIRECTIVES FOR THE NEGOTIATION 

of an international convention of the Council of Europe to combat the manipulation of sports 
results 

The future convention will aim at creating an international legal framework for the prevention 
of and fight against manipulation of sports results, notably match-fixing; the objective of the 
convention  should  be  to  enhance  international  cooperation  in  this  context  and  to  set  up  a 
monitoring mechanism to ensure that the provisions laid down in the convention are followed-
up in an effective way. 

The  European  Union  will  participate  in  these  meetings  with  a  view  to  ensuring  the 
consistency  of  the  proposed  convention  with  the  EU  acquis,  notably  in  terms  of  Internal 
Market  freedoms  (freedom  to  provide  services  and  freedom  of  establishment)  and  judicial 
cooperation in criminal matters. 

The  European  Union  will  also  participate  in  the  negotiations  with  the  objective  of  ensuring 
that the provisions of the future Convention are aligned with EU policies in the areas of sport, 
online gambling and fight against corruption. The reference documents for these policies are, 
inter alia, as follows: 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Commission Communication on Developing the European Dimension  in Sport 
(COM(2011)12 final); 

The Green Paper on Online Gambling (COM(2011)128 final); 

The Commission Communication on Fighting Corruption in the EU (COM(2011)308 
final); 

The  Commission  Communication  Towards  a  comprehensive  European  framework 
for online gambling (COM(2012) 596 final) 

The Council conclusions on combating match-fixing (16819/11).  

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