Lobby For Legalisation Of Sports Gambling?
The Government is to lobby its Commonwealth counterparts to legalise betting in an effort to prevent the “cancer” of gambling-related corruption spreading in sport, Telegraph Sport can disclose.
Sports minister Hugh Robertson is to press the case for legalised, regulated gambling in cricket-playing nations such as India in the wake of the spot-fixing allegations against the Pakistan team this summer.
It is alleged that the gambling syndicates behind attempts to manipulate the Pakistan players’ performances operate out of major Indian cities including Mumbai.
Bookmaking is illegal in India but that has not prevented a thriving industry estimated to be worth more than £250 million a year operating beyond the reach of the national and international authorities.
The vast illicit gambling markets in India, China, the Middle East and the US, where online betting is illegal, mean that controlling attempts to corrupt sport is hugely difficult for the authorities.
The Indian government has been considering legalising gambling, and Robertson will make the case for them doing so when he attends the Commonwealth Sports Ministers summit in New Delhi during the Commonwealth Games next month.
Robertson wrote to the Indian sports minister, MS Gill, on Tuesday requesting that the issue of sports betting and integrity be added to the agenda for the summit. He has also requested a meeting to discuss the threat of corruption with the International Cricket Council president Sharad Pawar, who is also India’s agriculture minister, during the Games.
Robertson told Telegraph Sport that match-fixing and spot-fixing posed a grave threat to the integrity of cricket and other team sports. He said the Commonwealth summit represents an opportunity to discuss the issue with the governments of all major cricket-playing nations.
“The greatest threat to team sports are the sort of integrity issues raised by the current allegations in cricket,” Robertson said. “I am absolutely determined to cut this out because fixing of the kind alleged is an absolute cancer in sport.
“As soon as you lose the integrity of team sports you might as well stop and go home, so we are determined to do whatever we can to stamp this out. The Commonwealth summit includes the sports ministers of every cricket nation so it’s an excellent forum to take some soundings.
“One option is to persuade countries where [illegal] syndicates operate to make betting legal, so that the markets can be regulated. Currently the main countries where corruption is alleged to originate are beyond the reach of any gambling regulation which makes controlling it very difficult.”
Robertson’s view is endorsed by the Gambling Commission, which regulates the UK betting industry and has been liasing with the Metropolitan Police over the cricket spot-fixing allegations.
Nick Tofiluk, the commission’s director of regulation, said the involvement of overseas bookmakers and illegal syndicates was a major complicating factor in securing prosecutions in cases of alleged fixing.
“Our focus is on criminality rather than breaches of sporting rules, and the involvement of illegal markets [in alleged fixing] is where we can have difficulty as a regulator,” he said.
“We might well have suspicions about the result of an event but tracking money through illegal markets is very difficult in most cases, and impossible in others. You just don’t see the same evidence as you do when dealing with allegations arising from legitimate gambling markets.”
While attention in the cricket case focuses on illicit Asian gambling syndicates, events in the past two years demonstrate that British sport and domestic bookmakers are not immune to abuse.
In the past 14 months the Football Association has quietly suspended or fined 16 players in the lower or non-League game for breaches of gambling regulations, and the police are investigating two cases of alleged match-fixing in snooker, separate to the John Higgins affair, which was discussed by an independent tribunal yesterday.
The Gambling Commission examined 108 suspicious sporting events between September 2007 and March this year, with the majority arising from bookmakers’ tip-offs. Of those 60 were dropped, 30 were passed to the sports governing body for further action with the remainder still ‘live’.
Despite the volume of investigations the commission has secured only a single caution under the new offence of cheating — it related to greyhound racing – leading to accusations from sport that it has not got to grips with the threat to sport.
Tofiluk defends its record, but says British sport cannot afford to be complacent. “I am increasingly confident that we are alert to the threat to sport, and that sports governing bodies are increasingly aware of the problems they might face,” he said.
“We are pursuing complex cases that often cross jurisdictions, and we are working with other agencies and the betting industry to understand the quantum of suspicious betting that that exists in illegal markets
Courtesy of The Telegraph
HAVE YOUR SAY: Will legalising gambling stop corruption?
Will Britain Deliver On Olympic Promises?
2 Years Marked To The London 2012 Olympic Games
In two years time, the Olympic flame will be lit in a stadium that is now all but finished on a site in east London that is looking more and more as it will in July 2012. This time next year, test events will begin. All of a sudden, there is not much time left.
Despite the worst recession for 70 years, the construction of the venues is on track.
“We’re in a remarkably good place,” said the sports and Olympics minister, Hugh Robertson. “As at today, we are marginally ahead of where we ought to be in construction terms and on budget, which is an extraordinarily good position to be in.”
As confidence grows that the London Olympics will avoid an Athens-style meltdown, attention will turn to the operational issues for which the London organising committee (Locog), chaired by Lord Coe, is responsible.
The venues are merely the canvas onto which the Games will be projected. The success or otherwise of ticketing schemes, upgrades to London’s transport infrastructure and – perhaps most importantly – efforts to ensure the atmosphere of the occasion pervades the capital and the country will determine whether the London Olympic Games are great rather than good.
Seemingly disparate discussions over the opening and closing ceremonies, plans for the “wrap” that will encircle the stadium, the route of the torch relay and the marketing campaigns that will sell unfamiliar sports to the British public will all take on increased significance.
“The emphasis of the whole project is switching from a construction‑based project to an operational project,” said Robertson. “Whereas all the attention has been on the budget and the construction, now you are looking at a project that is moving so that the challenges are operational, security and legacy based.”
Attention will now turn to what happens inside and around them in two years’ time.
Stadium
A stadium that was once criticised for lacking the ambition or grandeur of a Wembley or a Bird’s Nest has begun to look like a fitting symbol for a sleek, stripped down Games that will project attention on the human face of the competitors and crowd.
The “inside out” design, with many of the amenities to be housed in pods surrounding the stadium, lends it a minimalist, functional look. The external structure is all but finished, with the black and white frame and triangular floodlights that are held in place by slivers of wire dominating the east London skyline.
Turf will be laid by the end of the year and the running track installed next summer. The seats have started going in and the 700 internal rooms that will end up as drug testing facilities, warm‑up tracks and holding areas are being finished off.
Coming in at £516m, it still seems expensive for a structure that could yet end up being reduced to a 25,000‑capacity athletics stadium after the Games, even if that prospect seems increasingly remote.
However, standing in the back row of a bowl that will seat 80,000 it is possible for the first time to appreciate the claims made for the intimacy, arresting simplicity and impressive sight lines of the design.
Other Venues
Robertson believes that emphasis on functionality over extravagant form has been translated to the rest of the park. “Looking back now, it is arguable that you could have a cheaper swimming pool – but that is about it,” he says. “There is nothing else on that park that is extravagantly put up.” That places much pressure on the Zaha Hadid‑designed aquatics centre, the budget for which has spiralled to £257m, as the signature building that spectators will see when they enter the park. The ODA chief executive, David Higgins, is also hopeful the undulations and landscaping of the park as a whole, starting to take shape as thousands of plants take root, will be the defining motif rather than any one particular venue.
He believes the unobtrusive velodrome will be the “unsung hero” of the Games and the fabric cube of the temporary basketball venue, which will also house the handball finals, will prove a notable landmark once lit.
Olympic Village
Asked last month what had changed most since his last visit, the International Olympic Committee president, Jacques Rogge, was unequivocal in naming the speed with which the village has risen out of the ground. The biggest call the ODA has had to make was its decision to abandon attempts to fund the village, which will house 17,000 athletes during the Games and become 2,800 apartments afterwards, from the private sector.
Security
Baroness Neville-Jones, the minister of state for security, is conducting a review of the security budget but it will not be cut.
In practice, it is tacitly acknowledged that there are further funds available from the national anti-terror budget if required. Security has long been an area of some concern, owing to the delay in putting together a properly costed cross‑departmental plan and fears that there was no clear oversight.
However, there is now a renewed confidence that the Home Office-led operation will deliver. A key issue – as at any major sporting event but particularly so here given the emphasis placed on it by the organisers – will be balancing the need for keen vigilance and stringent security with the desire to create an inclusive and buoyant atmosphere.
Transport
It is a bald truth that all the planning and creative thinking applied to the Olympics could be undone at a stroke if trains fail to run on time.
“It’s the biggest risk,” said Higgins starkly. “We know where it hasn’t happened. There are famous Games where it hasn’t happened. The thing is it involves a lot of different players. You’ve got to get the train operating companies, Network Rail, Transport for London, the local boroughs, the police all to work together. You can’t have some kind of all-powerful tsar because they all have a day job. You have to build a consensus.”
By bundling in the transport costs to the overall budgets, it is unlikely any of the infrastructure improvements will be derailed by spending cuts. Many of the improvements, including the Javelin train that will link St Pancras to Stratford in seven minutes, are complete or close to being so.
The ODA will this week publish the latest version of its transport plan, revealing for the first time the locations of the controversial Olympic route network lanes that will transport competitors, officials and the media around the capital.
Tickets
While it is likely that the lowest ticket price will be set eye‑catchingly low, there will be intense scrutiny on the number of tickets available in different price categories and how accessible the most popular events are. Locog has to weigh the need to balance its budget against its pledge to make tickets as widely available as possible and avoid the empty seats.
It is, perhaps, the most important single calculation that Deighton and his team will make. All the rhetoric to date – from a “fans in front” policy that will put the biggest enthusiasts in the most visible seats to plans for shorter sessions and attempts to head off over-supply to sponsors – has served to increase hopes they will get it right. The schedule is due to be finalised in the coming weeks, ahead of a pricing announcement in the autumn and tickets going on sale in spring next year.
Robertson admitted delivering the legacy promised by Coe in his electrifying 2005 speech would be “challenging”.
But he said: “We made a pretty straightforward promise to the IOC and the global sports community that we would use 2012 to do something no bidding nation had done before, which was to energise a generation of young people through sport. We have to do our utmost to deliver on that.”
Courtesy of The Guardian
Usain Bolts From UK Tax System
Jamaican speedster Usain Bolt celebrates after winning the men's 100 metre race during the Colorful Daegu Pre-Championships Meeting 2010 at Daegu Stadium
Usain Bolt has withdrawn from next month’s Diamond League meeting in London for tax reasons.
Britain’s sports minister Hugh Robertson said he could intervene after Olympic and world 100m and 200m champion Bolt revealed he wouldn’t run at next month’s event because of Britain’s prohibitive tax rules. Robertson has alluded he could work something out with UK Athletics and promoters Fast Track.
“I’ve not had a direct approach from either the sport’s governing body or the promoters of the Crystal Palace meeting so I don’t know exactly what we are dealing with here,” Robertson said in an interview on BBC radio on Tuesday. “It is a problem we have come across and addressed with other sports and clearly if they write to me I will take it up with the treasury. It’s a problem across other sports.
“Golfers and tennis players have come to me, and I’m pretty sure that at the back end of the 2012 Olympic bill is a commitment not to tax overseas stars who come over to compete in the Olympics,” said Robertson. “If there is a particular problem (with Bolt) I’m happy to look at it and see if I can help.”
The British tax system means that Bolt would be taxed on his earnings at the lucrative event and also on a proportion of his huge personal endorsements throughout the year, even though he does not reside in Britain. It is a system that has already undermined Britain’s attempts to host some major sports events, including this year’s Champions League final, which was staged in Madrid rather than Wembley.
Robertson, however, said that it might be too late to prevent the world’s fastest man taking on Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay in a mouthwatering 100m in London. “Ideally (he will be at Crystal Palace) which is why I say when they write to me, I will see what I can do. Three weeks doesn’t give us a whole lot of time to organise a tax concession.”
REUTERS
FA Boss’ Fatal Faux Pas
Spearheading England's 2018 Bid Campaign: Fabio Capello, Triesman, and David Beckham
FA chairman, and point man on England’s 2018 World Cup bid, David Triesman, announced his resignation after his claims of a Spanish and Russian bribery conspiracy were made public.
The fallout of these revelations left England’s bid campaign badly damaged, the FA in chaos, and the chief spot on the bid committee vacant, following a newspaper sting in which Triesman was taped making claims of bribery.
Triesman, who on Friday stood beaming next to the nation’s golden boy David Beckham as England’s glossy 2018 bid brochure was presented to FIFA boss Sepp Blatter in Zurich, was left with no option but to quit as chairman of the FA and the World Cup bid, after being snared by what he described as entrapment.
The 66-year-old enjoyed the company of Prince William at the FA Cup final on Saturday, but a few hours later discovered his name splashed over the front page of the Mail on Sunday and his career as a football administrator in ruins.
In extracts of a secretly recorded private chat with Melissa Jacobs, a former aide from his time as a government minister, Triesman reportedly claims that Spain and Russia, rival bidders for the 2018 World Cup, were conspiring to bribe referees at next month’s finals in South Africa.
Grovelling letters of apology were sent by England 2018 team to their Spanish and Russian counterparts as well as governing body FIFA as bid chiefs attempted to limit the damage to a campaign that on Friday seemed firmly back on track after some high-profile difficulties in the past.
In a statement Triesman, who was seen as a safe pair of hands for an accident-prone organisation when he became the FA’s first independent chairman, confirmed he had resigned after little more than two years in the post.
“A private conversation with someone whom I thought to be a friend was taped without my knowledge and passed to a national newspaper,” Triesman said in a statement issued by the FA after a hastily convened Board meeting at Wembley on Sunday.
“In that conversation I commentated on speculation circulating about conspiracies around the world. Those comments were never intended to be taken seriously as indeed is the case with many private conversations.
“The views expressed were not the views of the 2018 Bid board or the FA. Nobody should be under any misapprehension that The FA or 2018 Bid board are disrespectful of other nations or FIFA and I regret any such inference that may have been drawn from what has been reported.
“Entrapment, especially by a friend is an unpleasant experience both for my family and me but it leaves me with no alternative but to resign.”
Geoff Thompson, a former FA chairman, was named as the new chairman of England’s 2018 bid team late on Sunday in a bid to keep the damage caused by Triesman’s comments to a minimum.
While Triesman’s opinions on Chelsea’s John Terry, stripped of the England captaincy after his own tabloid scandal, were quite harmless, his shocking claims, albeit private ones, about Spain and Russia made his position untenable.
BRIBE REFEREES
Triesman appears to suggest that Spain would consider dropping out of the race to host the 2018 World Cup to boost Russia’s bid chances if the Russians, who failed to qualify for next month’s finals, helped bribe referees.
“I think the Africans we are doing very well with,” Triesman is reported to have said in the most damaging chunk of the extracts. “I think we’re doing kind of well with some of the Asians. Probably doing well with Central and North America.”
“My assumption is that the Latin Americans, although they’ve not said so, will vote for Spain. And if Spain drop out, because Spain are looking for help from the Russians to help bribe the referees in the World Cup, their votes may then switch to Russia.”
The FA said it had accepted Triesman’s resignation and moved quickly to fill the vacuum, appointing David Sheepshanks and Roger Burden as joint acting chairmen.
Britain’s newly-appointed Sports Minister Hugh Robertson said Triesman’s decision to resign was correct. He said the strength of England’s bid to host the World Cup for the first time since winning it on home soil in 1966 meant it could emerge from the mess relatively unscathed.
“It’s sad for him personally but is absolutely the right decision to take,” he told the BBC. “Our top priority as a new government is to win this bid for the country and I am delighted they have acted quickly and decisively.
“It’s certainly not good news. However, you have to remember that these things do blow over and once that happens the fundamental strengths of the bid are still there.”
England’s 2018 World Cup team distanced themselves from Triesman’s slip of the tongue, strongly stating that his alleged comments in no way represented their own views.
While Spanish officials remained silent, Russia responded to having their reputation soiled by calling on FIFA’s ethical commission to deal with the situation.
“From the very beginning we’ve been committed to maintaining the ethical norms and the principles of fair play in our World Cup campaign,” said Alexei Sorokin, chief executive the Russian World Cup bid committee and CEO of the Russian Football Federation.
“I don’t know why there are so many rumours regarding Russia’s World Cup bid. Maybe because we’re moving in the right direction and our rivals see us as a major force and try to derail our bid campaign.”
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