Macolin and beyond : legal and regulatory initiatives against match manipulation

Match manipulation, as one of the most common types of sports fraud, constitutes a significant threat to the integrity of sport and those involved. This paper aims to provide an image of the legal and regulatory framework currently in place to tackle match manipulation in sport against the background of the topics dealt with by the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions of 2014 (Macolin Convention). The paper, firstly, observes that, over the course of the past decade, several European states have introduced specific anti-corruption laws to deal with the phenomenon. In addition, multiple initiatives that were taken with the intention of improving national and international cooperation in relation to the topic of match manipulation are considered. At national level, numerous states have created multi-stakeholder platforms, so-called national platforms. At international level, cooperative initiatives exist as well. For example, organisations such as INTERPOL and Europol facilitate cooperation between police authorities and law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, the Group of Copenhagen, created against the backdrop of the Macolin framework, brings together representatives of the various national platforms. Last, the paper discusses multiple actions taken at the level of sports organisations in order to strengthen their regulatory framework with the aim of preventing, detecting and sanctioning match manipulation