The truth is our great­est as­set.

There are times when one may feel that the choice is an im­pos­si­ble one, which is to fol­low or­ders or to choose to fol­low one’s con­science. The choice to fol­low con­science, not can or may, will come with a heavy price. In­sti­tu­tion­al re­sis­tance, in­sti­tu­tion­al prej­u­dice and bias are re­al­i­ties.

That be­ing said, jus­tice re­quires that the choice of con­science be made. It’s the on­ly way to en­sure jus­tice pre­vails, no mat­ter how long it may take.

Every day we read, see or hear the news, re­gard­less of the source, the break­down of checks and bal­ances is ev­i­dent. Cor­rup­tion rules the day, and its fer­tilis­er is si­lence. Dare to speak up, dare to iden­ti­fy un­in­ten­tion­al or in­ten­tion­al er­rors that end with malfea­sance, mis­man­age­ment, poor gov­er­nance or out­right cor­rup­tion.

Just check the news. Pay at­ten­tion.

It is against this re­al­i­ty that sports ad­min­is­tra­tors face a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge. How to avoid the pit­falls of cor­rup­tion in an ecosys­tem where cor­rup­tion is en­dem­ic and sys­temic? The start­ing point is to refuse to be silent. Em­brace the fear of speak­ing out and up. Un­der­stand what it is and what it looks like.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Roc­co Por­reca of Ox­ford Brookes: “Sport cor­rup­tion en­com­pass­es many forms which can in­clude match fix­ing, dop­ing, ‘scalp­ing’ - re-sell­ing tick­ets at a much high­er price -, ‘tank­ing’, which is when an ath­lete de­lib­er­ate­ly puts in less ef­fort while com­pet­ing, which can be linked to bets placed on re­sults with­in a sport­ing con­test. Cor­rup­tion can al­so come in the form of bribery as­so­ci­at­ed with host­ing bids.

Every time the me­dia pub­lish­es an­oth­er sto­ry about bribery or oth­er forms of cor­rup­tion, the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the world of sport gets called in­to ques­tion. Im­prov­ing gov­er­nance and boost­ing trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty are keys to main­tain­ing a good rep­u­ta­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to In­ter­pol (in­ter­pol.int): Sport brings peo­ple to­geth­er, but crim­i­nals look­ing to make large prof­its can un­der­mine its in­tegri­ty.

Match-fix­ing and oth­er crimes in sport are a way for or­gan­ised syn­di­cates to gen­er­ate high prof­its and laun­der their il­le­gal pro­ceeds, with lim­it­ed risk of de­tec­tion.

Tack­ling these is­sues re­quires na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion be­tween sport, pub­lic au­thor­i­ties, bet­ting reg­u­la­tors, the gam­bling in­dus­try and law en­force­ment.

Playthegame.org ar­tic­u­lates it this way: When sport is ex­ploit­ed for il­lic­it pur­pos­es and pri­vate gain, there are hu­man and eco­nom­ic costs. Crime and cor­rup­tion not on­ly weak­en trust in sports com­pe­ti­tions and those who gov­ern and par­tic­i­pate in them; they dam­age so­ci­ety.

Play the Game al­so makes the point that un­der­stand­ing how sport be­came vul­ner­a­ble to crime, cor­rup­tion, and oth­er breach­es of in­tegri­ty is im­por­tant.

Sev­er­al fac­tors con­tribute: The rapid com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of sport has cre­at­ed vast fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties, at­tract­ing not on­ly le­git­i­mate stake­hold­ers but al­so in­vestors and mer­chants who pri­ori­tise prof­it over sport­ing val­ues.

In­suf­fi­cient reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works make sport an at­trac­tive sec­tor for il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in com­par­i­son to oth­er in­dus­tries.

Weak gov­er­nance struc­tures of sports or­gan­i­sa­tions make them vul­ner­a­ble due to in­ad­e­quate over­sight, con­flicts of in­ter­est, and a lack of in­de­pen­dent reg­u­la­tion.

The transna­tion­al na­ture of sport and its gov­er­nance struc­tures hin­ders the ef­fec­tive­ness of na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry, in­ves­tiga­tive, and ju­di­cial frame­works in pre­vent­ing and com­bat­ing cor­rup­tion.

Tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ments such as the ex­pan­sion of the In­ter­net, the evo­lu­tion of smart­phones, and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence con­stant­ly fa­cil­i­tate new crim­i­nal meth­ods.