ClearingSport: Countering corruption, protecting integrity

Play the Game has invited experts and stakeholders to provide inputs to the creation of a global agency that counters crime and protects integrity in world sports.

For more than 15 years, international organisations and experts have highlighted a growing number of integrity threats to international sports. Bribery, organised crime, political manipulation, match-fixing and various forms of abuse of athletes have made regular headlines, while new and technologically advanced forms of sporting cheat and financial crime are on the rise.

During the Play the Game 2022 conference, a number of international experts called on Play the Game to start an open consultation process exploring the viability of an international agency against all forms of corruption in sport – except doping, which since 1999 has been in the hands of WADA.

As a first step in response to this call, Play the Game has initiated a survey on the needs, possibilities and perspectives of an international agency, as well as the path to establish and organise such an agency. The survey has been distributed to a large number of experts and stakeholders within the international sports field to obtain a broad range of inputs.

The survey has been conducted in collaboration with German journalist Grit Hartmann who has decades of expertise in working with sports integrity matters. In 2022, she made a study for the member of the European Parliament, Viola von Cramon, on the recent history of the most important sports corruption scandals and the initiatives taken so far to fight transnational sports crime.

The first part of the ClearingSport project has been concluded in June 2023 with the launch of a report to initiate further consultation. One of the next steps will be taken at the Play the Game 2024 conference from 4-7 February in Trondheim, Norway. 

For Play the Game’s future work with the project, the name ‘ClearingSport’ has replaced the old working title ‘WACA: World Anti-Corruption Agency’ for a number of reasons, among others:

• ‘ClearingSport’ is active, descriptive and easy to say
• It is not an acronym that has to be explained
• It connotates with the concepts ‘clearing house’ and transparency
• It cannot be confounded with WADA
• It has sport in its name

More information about the project: