New Commitment to Strengthen the Protection of Integrity in Sport

by Roy Brindley, 3 November 2025

The 5th International Forum on Sports Integrity, organised by the International Olympic Committee, has endorsed and adopted a new action-oriented commitment.

Delegates at the International Forum for Sport Integrity pose for the cameras. ©IOC/Christophe Morata

Key Facts:

• The International Forum on Sports Integrity has met for the fifth time.
• A new action-oriented commitment to strengthen the protection of integrity in sport has been agreed.
• Call made for betting entities to share information regarding irregular/suspicious betting activity.

At the end of October, the fifth International Forum on Sports Integrity brought together more than 400 leaders from the Olympic movement, governments, intergovernmental organisations and betting authorities.

The global platform, established by the International Olympic Committee, has a mission to address and coordinate efforts against threats to the integrity of sport, including match fixing, illegal and irregular betting, doping, and other integrity-related risks.

The Strong Web for Integrity Across Sport

Opening the event, IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who is a double Olympic swimming champion, explained how sports integrity translates to the field of play: “I know from my journey that being able to have confidence in the competitions and in the stakeholders was always really important,” she said.

“And this is what we all represent in this room. We are all the people that make the different decisions in and around how athletes will be protected, and how to strengthen different protocols and codes.”

“Important discussion at the IOC in Lausanne today on how we can take additional steps together to further promote good governance, combat corruption, abuses and match-fixing in sports.”

5th International Forum for Sports Integrity @UNODC@ASOIFSummerIFs @iocmedia @FEI_Global… pic.twitter.com/T4sC4erSAX

— Bjørn Berge (@DSGBjornBerge) October 24, 2025

Coventry went on to emphasise the importance of collaboration and highlighted the shared responsibility for upholding integrity across sports, governments, and society. She compared it to a functioning spider web – strong and resistant only when all the threads are intact and connected.

“It takes all of us in our individual capacities to come together, to work together, and to ensure that we want the same outcome, which is to strengthen the integrity of our different individual institutions.”

Concrete Action for Sport Protection

At the conclusion of the meeting, the Forum unanimously endorsed and adopted the Universal Declaration on Sports Integrity, a new action-oriented commitment to strengthen the protection of integrity in sport. The Declaration outlines responsibilities and concrete follow-up actions for key stakeholders across four priority areas:

1. Promoting good governance and combating corruption in sport.
2. Preventing competition manipulation.
3. Integrity in officiating and the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
4. Safeguarding in sport.

Pertinent to sports betting, the second section of the 1,300-word document declares the Olympic Movement calls upon “States to ensure that their criminal law is well equipped in terms of covering competition manipulation related offences.”

Likewise, “States to ensure that appropriate legislation/regulations are in place, allowing for the sharing of information, including account-based information between sport, law enforcement and betting entities.”

Point 2.6 of the Universal Declaration on Sports Integrity calls for: “Betting entities to share timely information regarding irregular/suspicious betting activity with relevant sports and law enforcement authorities.”

The final reference to gambling on sports comes in point 2.7, which states: “Betting entities to make their best efforts to share account-based information with the sports movement in relation to sportspersons who place bets on their sport/competition.”

The IOC Has Had Its Share of ‘Previous’

The International Olympic Committee has suffered its fair share of doping and integrity issues since the turn of the century. Systematic state-sponsored subversion of the drug testing processes by the host nation, Russia, at the 2014 Winter Olympics rocked the sporting world.

The 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City were marred by a bid scandal that led to the resignation of many IOC members. It served as a precursor for a bigger scandal which hit that year’s games and shook the organisation to its core.

Documented in a 2021 episode of Netflix’s ‘Bad Sports’, the controversy involved figure skating judges being pressured into voting for Russian skaters in the pairs’ figure skating competition. In exchange, it was proposed that Russian judges would support French skaters in a later ice dance event.

All Bets Are off in Eight Tiers of English Football

Domestically, football has been severely hit by rule breaches involving players who have placed bets on their own sport. Since 2014, the Football Association (FA) has prohibited anyone associated with a club in the top eight tiers of English football from betting on any aspect of the sport worldwide.

England International Ivan Toney grabbed the headlines and an eight-month Football Association ban for breaching their betting rules in 2023. Since then, a host of lesser-known offenders have made the news. The mid-to-late 2025 period has been particularly busy for the regulators.

Big Trouble for ‘Thousands of Bets’ Bowman

In July 2025, former Birmingham City, Crystal Palace, Leicester City and Bolton Wanderers player Neil Danns was given a suspended six-month ban for three ‘modest stakes’ accumulator bets he placed between 2014 and 2022.

Also in July, 33-year-old Ryan Bowman, the former Shrewsbury and Cheltenham striker, was banned for three-and-a-half years after he admitted placing 6,397 bets between June 2022 and September 2023.

Often using other people’s online betting accounts – “to hide his extensive football betting activity, which he knew at all material times, was against the rules,” according to an independent commission that heard his case – 351 of Bowman’s wagers involved Exeter or Shrewsbury at a time when he was playing for those clubs.

Three More Players Red Carded This Autumn

In September, 2,248 bets on football matches placed between April 2019 and July 2023, earned 24-year-old Walsall player, Jamie Jellis, a five-month ban (suspended for 12 months) and a £1,200 fine.

Two hundred fifty-two bets placed by AFC Wimbledon star Osman Foyo between October 2023 and March 2025 resulted in the Dutch player being handed a one-month ban and an additional four-month suspended sentence at the beginning of October.

Two weeks later, Notts County defender Lewis Macari was slapped with a three-month suspended ban and a £750 fine for breaching betting rules between February 2020 and December 2022. He was between 18 and 20 years old at the time.

The regulatory commission noted that Macari, whose 354 bets saw him stake just over £3,000 and record a net loss of £470, “demonstrated a level of wilful ignorance as to the FA betting rules.”