Speed calls for 'anti-cheat' laws

Sport should call very loudly and with some urgency on all governments to introduce 'cheating in sport' legislation Malcolm Speed

International Cricket Council chief executive Malcolm Speed has urged governments around the world to criminalise cheating in sport.

"It is only five years since corruption struck a powerful blow to the integrity of cricket," he told the SportAccord conference in Berlin.

"Other sports and governments owe it to their stakeholders to be mindful of cricket's experience."

Anti-corruption inquiries in cricket led to life bans for five players.

They included Hansie Cronje, Mohammad Azharuddin and Salim Malik, former captains of the South African, Indian and Pakistan national teams.

"After effective input from our Anti Corruption and Security Unit, the UK government has recently become one of the few legislators to crimialise cheating in sport.

"This should be seen as a major positive for London's 2012 Olympic bid.

"It would be great to see legislation of this sort in Germany for next year's football World Cup, in China in 2008 for the Olympics, and in all of the eight countries of the Caribbean in which the next ICC Cricket World Cup will be played [in 2007]," said Speed.

Section 41 of the UK Gambling Act has two main provisions:

A person commits an offence if he cheats at gambling or does anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling.

Cheating at gambling may consist of actual or attempted deception or interference in connection with a game, race or other event or process to which gambling relates.

Cricket's investigators have uncovered evidence of bets on all aspects of the game from the outcome of the pre-match coin toss to the number of players on a fielding side wearing sunglasses.

And Speed predicted other sports would face similar problems with betting-related corruption.

"Where a player agrees to under-perform in return for payment from a bookmaker or gambler, his actions strike at the heart of the game.

"Unless a sport can guarantee that all of its participants are trying their hardest to advance the interests of their team, in every aspect of the event, the sporting public is entitled to distrust and disown the sport."