- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
This week we have seen the Essendon Football Club and the Australian Anti-Sports Doping Authority (ASADA) in court, 18 months after the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) released its findings following the conclusion of Project APERIO.
This was the now infamous report linking performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) and organised crime in sport.
The report that was meant to alert policy and decision makers to the serious and damaging connections that were emerging between organised crime networks, illicit drugs and PIEDs and match fixing. The announcement was hijacked by politicians and it became known as the “blackest day in Australian sport.”
The press briefing can be viewed here.
The politicians failed to grasp the key message of the report: that organised crime had the potential to erode the integrity of Australian sport. Instead they attacked the athletes, declaring that if you cheat you will be found out. Very little attention was paid to the role of the criminal networks.
Later in July 2013 the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) released a short but telling fact sheet highlighting the potential threats to the integrity of Australian sport.
It distilled the key points from the Project APERIO report and it outlined the potential influence of match fixing on our sports betting market- a market that is growing exponentially. It did not receive much fanfare and unless you were an intelligence practitioner or a wagering professional you may have completely missed it.
The fact sheet highlighted that in the decade leading up to 2011 betting on horses grew by 69 per cent but betting on all other sports grew by 278 per cent. There was $20 billion waged on horses and $3 billion on other sports.
The money involved is staggering for a country of just 23 million people.
However the response to the Project APERIO report has been completely misdirected. It is almost as if all of the sports journalists in Australia stopped reading once they finished the PIED chapter of the report. As a result the Essendon Bombers and the Cronulla Sharks have been put through the wringer without due process. Reputations have been shattered and confidence in the integrity of our athletes has plummeted.
If you read the entire report however, you would realise that the use of PIEDs by athletes was not the real issue. The ACC was trying to alert authorities that they had intelligence (not evidence) that indicated organised crime figures were becoming involved in the sale and distribution of illicit drugs and PIEDs in order to gain leverage over sports figures, particularly sub-elite athletes.
Taking the long view, the criminals cultivate the relationship between themselves and the athlete by providing illicit drugs and PIEDs while the athlete is under less scrutiny in the sub-elite competitions (VFL, Holden Cup).
Should the athlete make it to the big time two things would be achieved. Firstly, the criminal would gain prestige by being associated with an elite athlete, but secondly, and more importantly, they would be able to blackmail the athlete into becoming complicit in match fixing as they could expose the athlete’s previous drug taking history if they did not comply.
Given the growing amount of money being wagered on non-equestrian sports, highlighted in the ACC fact sheet of July, this is a most enticing prospect for organised crime networks. This is the real issue at hand and needs everyone’s attention.
Unfortunately the importance of this issue has been lost as we have viewed the unedifying sight of players, coaches and officials being paraded before the media to answer questions about supplements. Meantime no-one has apparently bothered to see if the ACC was right and check that matches are being fixed by organised crime networks. I am only aware of two such investigations- one involving a sub-elite football league and one involving tennis players.
The Cricket World Cup and the 2015 Asian Cup are nearly upon us. The ACC and Australian Federal Police (AFP) are looking for ways to deter match fixers from putting their grubby paws all over these events. The money wagered will be immense here and overseas, and the potential profits from a well orchestrated dropped catch or missed goal will be significant. Let us hope that law enforcement can make inroads into this serious matter.
Do not get me wrong. I am not condoning the use of banned substances. But to me is seems too easy to have a crack at the integrity of the athletes– most are young and dazzled by their celebrity. They think they are ten foot tall and bullet proof and are thus vulnerable to enticements. The real issue is the role played by criminal networks. That should be the focus of everyone’s attention.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.