Match-fixing won't go away: bet on it, says troubleshooter

The head of of one of the world's leading betting companies has called on world sport to create and anti-corruption body similar to the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

Mark Davies, the managing director of Betfair, goes further, suggesting Wada itself could be expanded from an anti-doping agency to an organisation that chases corrupt sportspeople, be they dope cheats or match-fixers.

Davies, speaking to the Sunday Star-Times after addressing a Leaders in Sport conference in Auckland, said many sports were reluctant to address the threat of corruption and that a global anti-corruption agency was needed.

"There isn't a body that sits at the top of sport that's something we'd love to see, a world integrity agency that encompasses both drugs and betting and any other form of corruption," Davies said.

"For me it should be the same body. If a sportsman is trying to corrupt byenhancing his performance by drugs or trying to corrupt by minimising his performance and make money off the back of it, I don't see a distinction.

"People will say there's a difference but I'm not interested in anything other than seeing someone trying to do his best on the day. If he's not doing that either because of an enhancer or a detractor he should be dealt with by somebody."

Davies said sports organisations had to tip the "risk-reward ratio" so heavily in favour of risk that athletes wouldn't take a chance on match-fixing.

He said the anti-doping war is working because athletes such as Justin Gatlin, Dwain Chambers and Marion Jones have been caught and exposed as drug cheats and therefore other athletes are more wary of the risk attached to drug-taking.

"Why aren't we seeing the same things with betting?"

Betfair was at the centre of the most talked-about match-fixing investigation since cricket's darkest days, when Russian tennis player Nikolay Davydenko pulled out of his match Martin Vassallo Arguello in Sopot, Poland, last year.

Betfair revealed there had been a deluge of bets on Arguello even after he lost the first set to Davydenko, who lost the second set and then withdrew citing a foot injury.

Betfair voided all bets on the match (which Davies points out cost the company money as it's a betting exchange and only makes money through commission). Betfair's records show a clear pattern of punters knowing what the outcome of the match was going to be.

The men's professional tennis tour (ATP) is still investigating Davydenko and in the wake of the news, player after player came forward saying they were either asked to throw a match or knew someone who did.

Tennis is one of 29 sports that has signed up to Betfair's information sharing system and Davies is staggered by number of sports who've turned down the chance to use similar revelatory material about betting patterns on their events.

"One sporting body, which weapproached with a view to signing an information-sharing agreement, actually told us directly that they didn't want information because they were frightened about the level of corruption it would reveal.

"There are some sports bodies that don't want to take the information we provide which I find extraordinary given there's no-strings attached.

"What a sports body doesn't want is to have an issue where someone says `could that be betting-related?' and they have to say `we have no idea'. Well why not? There's a company out there providing that information in real time, why wouldn't you take that? Yet there are plenty that don't."

Davies believes some sports still think the problem lies with the betting agencies rather than the athletes.

"The idea that corruption must be rooted out is uncontentious. The question is simply how we do it. In my view, agreement on this is hindered because many people think that betting causes corruption.

"But betting in itself is not corrupt. Corrupt betting is not really betting at all. By definition it is merely getting guaranteed financial reward through securing a fixed outcome, which isn't the same as having a bet, taking a gamble.

"As far as I am concerned, either you can be corrupted, or you can't. If you can't bribe a sportsman or a group of sportsmen to rig a result, then you can't get a result fixed. The heart of the problem in the issue of corruption in sport is not betting, but is sportsmen willing to be bought."

- © Fairfax NZ News