Bangkok, Thailand, December 7, 2024: The Olympic Council of Asia’s Athletes Department Manager, Mr. Jamyang Namgyal, closed the OCA Prevention of Manipulation of Competition (PMC) Workshop on Saturday afternoon by highlighting the important role of the participants.
“You are the messengers of integrity. The fight is ongoing. You are not alone,” he said, at the end of the two-day OCA PMC Workshop held in collaboration with the IOC and Interpol and hosted by the National Olympic Committee of Thailand at the Intercontinental Hotel in Bangkok.
Mr. Jamyang thanked the IOC and Interpol for their support of the OCA and NOC Thailand. He praised the “energy, insights and commitment” of the delegates from 43 National Olympic Committees as well as representatives of law enforcement agencies and government ministries.
Referring to match-fixing and PMC, he added: “This is a threat that challenges the very heart of sport. The workshop has been very insightful and informative.”
The workshop focused on the role and responsibilities of the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) within NOCs and the connection with the relevant authorities at local, national and international level.
All 34 NOCs competing at the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China next February have been urged to appoint an SPOC to tackle PMC – a trend that will continue through every Asian Games.
The morning session on the second day of the workshop began with a presentation by Interpol and the IOC on the different types of investigation and case studies behind the scenes of match-fixing. This included suspicious betting patterns on tennis meriting the need for investigation, and the methods of operation by match-fixers in approaching vulnerable athletes.
Benjamin Schindler, Senior Legal Affairs Manager of FIBA, built on the initial presentation and highlighted procedures and case studies on investigations into competition manipulation in basketball.
The OCA’s Director of Development and NOC Relations, Mr. Wissam Trkmani, presented participation gifts to Mr. Humaid Alameemi from Interpol and Mr. Evangelos Alexandrakis on behalf of the IOC. OCA Executive Board member Noura Hassan Al Jasmi also presented gifts to the workshop organisers.
The final session of the workshop involved groups discussing case studies such as ice hockey players betting on their own games; handball teammates being approached on social media to manipulate competition; the financial status of a volleyball player improving dramatically in a short space of time and linked to the sightings of a relative visiting a betting office; or a gymnast claiming that the judges awarded her a lower score than the standard of her performance.
The groups described how they would tackle the cases step by step, from initial inquiries through national federations to the local police or even to an international level.
The case studies were designed to test the participants on what they had learned during the workshop, and how to link the various parties involved in identifying and combating match-fixing and PMC.
The two-day PMC Workshop followed a one-day Safeguarding Workshop as the OCA builds momentum in its new “Guarding the Asian Games” initiative.
