SIGA Integrity Week Day 3 wrap: São Paulo joins SIGA, Brazilian Government signs MOU

SIGA Sport Integrity Week continues apace with Day 3, Monday, seeing a host of announcements and fascinating debates on the subject of integrity in sport. SIGA is the leading organisation in this field, bringing together clubs, institutions, regulators and many others from across the sporting landscape to ensure the sport industry is governed under the highest integrity standards so that the values of sport are protected. AS is a proud media partner of SIGA and will be hosting a series of panels and discussions on Wednesday morning as part of Sport Integrity Week.

Day 3 of Sport Integrity kicks off in Brazil

Day 3 of the Sport Integrity Week 2023 started with a bang in Brazil: São Paulo FC became the first Professional Football Club to join SIGA as member. The announcement was made in two steps: first in the words of Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, SIGA Global CEO, during the Opening Session of the Sport Integrity Forum Latin America; and in the last intervention of the day by Roberto Armelin, Legal and Compliance Officer of the club.

The breaking news helped end in a high note a day where dozens of high-level speakers shared their expertise and showed engagement with SIGA mission, while witnessing two more historical moments: the announcement that Yduqs will also become SIGA member, and the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between SIGA, SIGA LATIN AMERICA and the Brazilian Sports Ministry, represented in-person by the Minister Ana Moser.

SIGA further consolidates its presence in Latin America, and sees a growing number of like-minded individuals and organisations hold hands to pursue a common goal: create a new era of Sport Integrity.

During the day, the Morumbi Stadium, home of São Paulo FC, witnessed debates on topics like sustainability, the priorities regarding Sport for the Brazilian presidency of the G20/B20, Global Business, gender equity, anti-racism, diversity and inclusion, among others.

SIGA also presented the 2023 version of the Universal Standards on Good Governance in Sport, both in Portuguese and in English.

The day finished with mixed teams of men and women playing the Integrity Game, at the iconic Morumbi Stadium.

Online abuse in sport

The webinar “Online Abuse in Sport: The state of play”, hosted by SIGNIFY was conducted by Jonathan Hirshler and Jake Marsh, with Jonathan giving his thorough insight on the topic.

After a short introduction on Signify, an ethical data science company using machine learning and massive public data set to find out what people care about, the webinar covered several topics such as the abuse during the FIFA World Cup, highlighting that the majority of abuse came from South America (36%) and Europe (38%). As developed by Jonathan Hirshler “whenever a Portuguese or Spanish-speaking country got kicked out there was a big peak on abuse on the social platforms”.

As further developed during the session, it was reported that 1 in every 4 players at a Tennis Grand Slam Tournament received targeted abuse, strengthening the hexposal of individual versus team sports athletes that, in Jonathan’s opinion “are protected by a team and thus not as exposed”.

With case studies with the EPL, NBA and Arsenal FC Jonathan took some conclusions to understand why the abuse happens. In the English Premier League it was mainly when a player was bought or sold, with the exception of the only women’s presence in the top 10 list, topped by Man United’s player Alejandro Garnacho, Alisha Lehmann.

Through NBA’s case study, it was mainly concluded that 46% were homophobic abuse and 26% racist: Lebron James was the victim of most abuse.

Arsenal FC was willing to identify abusers amongst the club’s fans and during the period in which more than 60 club athletes and staff participated, 20 club members (fans) and season ticket holders were banned via Threat Matrix detection and evidence.

The Threat Matrix designed by Signify offers athletes and their families support and protection to proactively report abuse at scale.

In the Q&A session, Jonathan calmly and objectively answered the active public of the webinar on different but related topics such as the roles of social platforms in identifying abusers and many others.

UEFA AAA - spotlight on sports betting

What are the challenges, the opportunities, and the risks that the sports betting landscape is facing?

João Fonseca, President of the UEFA AAA, gave an opening speech and welcomed Rick Parry, chairman of the EFL, and Simon Thomas, Partner at Colganbauer and former Chief Comercial Officer at FIFA to the panel.

Sid Kohli, Secretary General of the UEFA AAA, moderated the session and kept the conversation flowing. These two wildly experienced executives talked about how crucial Integrity is to the Sports Industry and dived into various topics, such as match-fixing, the significance that AI will have in the world of sports betting, the positive ways in which sports betting can impact the sports industry, the promotion of responsible gambling, and the upcoming gambling act in the UK.

Both speakers also answered questions from the viewers, enhancing the interactivity of the session and keeping the audience thoroughly engaged throughout the entire discussion.

Journalism and financial fair-play

This conference, organised by SIGA media partner CNID (Portuguese Association of Sports Journalists), allowed the participants to discuss ideas on Sports Betting, Integrity and the Media. Manuel Queiroz, president, CNID; Hugo Gilberto, deputy director, RTP, and Tiago Machado, sports specialist, shared their views on the objectives of Financial Fair-Play – the financial health of clubs and some balance, as far as possible, between teams and competitions.

Examples such as the sanctioning of Manchester City, which has since been overturned in court, Paris Saint-Germain, and recent developments in the Saudi League, were under scrutiny. It was established that there were certain contortions that clubs took advantage of and that UEFA had very tight rules, despite recently authorizing the participation in the same competition of clubs with the same owner, such as RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg, Brighton and Union Saint-Gilloise.

World Rugby, anti-corruption and sports laws

Day 3 of the Sport Integrity Week was also marked by a huge display of commitment to Sport Integrity. World Rugby held a Training session on Integrity, in Paris, ahead of the upcoming Rugby World Cup. In Rome, Italy, Eurispes gathered specialists to discuss the role of research in the fight against corruption. SIGA Chair, Giovanni Tartaglia Polcini, Nicola Alloca, Chair-Anti-Corruption Committee, Business at OECD; and Stefano Cavanna, Expert in EU, Capacity Building Programmes, Senior Managing Partner, Arché were the guest speakers. By the end of the day, in Portugal, the Hosting Partner Kausa Advogados shared a live stream with their sports law experts Mafalda Fernandes and Bruno Moreira, lawyers, discussing Sports laws and regulations. Watch the session.