(Photo Credit by FIFA via Reelwerks)
OFC’s Head of Legal and Compliance Farah Mohammed attended the inaugural FIFA Integrity Summit held in Singapore last week.
The summit brought together integrity officers from 211 Member Associations and the six confederations came together to hear from speakers across sporting, integrity, betting and law enforcement backgrounds about updates on global integrity trends, share best practices, and explore relevant decisions from FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding match manipulation.
The summit coincided with the release of the new FIFA Integrity Handbook and Education Roadmap.
Mohammed who represented OFC along with several Integrity officers from Member Associations, says the two-day summit was beneficial to be able to connect not only with regional integrity officers, but also the integrity officers across the different FIFA Member Associations.
“So, we can discuss and balance ideas off each other and learn from the other member associations, confederations, about how they’re approaching integrity in their regions. Secondly it was great to see the tangible road map that FIFA has put in place to combat integrity in football.” Mohammed said.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino addressed the Summit via video link and warned that match manipulation “has not gone away.” He said the Member Associations and FIFA must tackle the issue “together’.
Mohammed welcomed FIFA’s approach to the issue.
“There was a lot of emphasis on education, not just for Federations, but also the direct people who can be targets of match manipulation, the players, the officials, the administration, staff. It was great to see what FIFA have put in place to provide support and assistance to our Member Associations and Confederations to enable us to combat integrity issues within our region and how we can help individuals understand what integrity issues can arise in the sport, what match manipulation looks like and what resources can help with mitigating this risk.”
Mohammed said there were several positive outcomes from the Summit.
“It will be great to see the commencement of the education programme presented by FIFA Integrity through the three-step approach as well as the 2nd edition of the Global Integrity Programme in our region. OFC is excited to continue on this journey with our Integrity family.”