As the FIFA World Cup commands global attention, Integrity Voices looks beyond the pitch — to the values, choices and leadership shaping the future of Sport.
Four leaders. Five questions. Four perspectives from across the global game.
A platform for our Members. A forum for dialogue. A contribution to the global conversation on Sport Integrity — at a moment when Football has the world’s full attention.
Alessandra Priante
Former President of ENIT SpA – the Italian National Tourism Board; Co-Chair, SIGA EUROPE Advisory Board
The commodification of sport. When sport becomes purely a financial product — driven by betting markets, inflated transfer fees, and opaque governance — it loses the one thing that makes it irreplaceable: trust. The World Cup reaches billions of people. That reach carries responsibility. The integrity of the game is not a compliance issue. It is the foundation on which the entire value of sport rests. Without it, there is no fan, no sponsor, no future.
Fernando Veiga Gomes
Partner, Abreu Advogados; Chair, SIGA Ethics Committee
Match manipulation is the most important Sport Integrity issue during the FIFA World Cup 2026 because it is high-impact, transnational, technologically enabled, and capable of undermining the fundamental credibility of the tournament.
João Paulo Almeida
Sport Integrity Expert; Co-Chair, SIGA Permanent Committee on Sports Betting Integrity
The biggest integrity challenge will be safeguarding competition integrity against increasingly sophisticated betting-related manipulation. The expanded 48-team format creates more matches, more betting markets, and more opportunities for criminal networks to target vulnerable players, officials, and support staff. Success will depend on real-time intelligence-sharing, coordinated monitoring, education, effective reporting mechanisms, and rapid cross-border cooperation between sport bodies, betting operators, and law enforcement.
Nicola Allocca
Chair, Integrity and Anti Corruption Committee, Business at OECD (BIAC); Member, SIGA Permanent Committee on Anti-Corruption in Sport
A World Cup is far more than a competition: it is a shared spectacle reaching children, families, institutions, sponsors, and communities worldwide. It offers sport a unique opportunity and responsibility to promote fairness, respect, inclusion, accountability, and equal opportunity. Integrity means turning these values into visible behaviour, with leaders and organisations setting the example and helping to level the playing field, on and off the pitch.
Alessandra Priante
Former President of ENIT SpA – the Italian National Tourism Board; Co-Chair, SIGA EUROPE Advisory Board
Integrity in action means making the right decision when no one is watching — and being transparent about it when everyone is. In sport, as in governance, integrity is not declared. It is demonstrated. It lives in the quality of the rules, the independence of the oversight, and the courage to sanction those who violate them — regardless of their power or their commercial value.
Fernando Veiga Gomes
Partner, Abreu Advogados; Chair, SIGA Ethics Committee
It means a lot. I have always been involved in sport: as an athlete, as a fan, as the grandson of a football club president, as the son of a national swimming champion, and then as a sports lawyer. For me, there is no sport without integrity.
João Paulo Almeida
Sport Integrity Expert; Co-Chair, SIGA Permanent Committee on Sports Betting Integrity
Sport Integrity means protecting the credibility of sport through ethical governance, transparency, accountability, and fair competition. But integrity is only meaningful when translated into concrete action. Policies, education, monitoring, reporting mechanisms, stakeholder cooperation, and effective enforcement are what turn principles into practice. Integrity is not a statement of intent; it is a continuous commitment to implementation, evaluation, and improvement that earns and sustains public trust.
Nicola Allocca
Chair, Integrity and Anti Corruption Committee, Business at OECD (BIAC); Member, SIGA Permanent Committee on Anti-Corruption in Sport
Sport Integrity is the ability to ensure that the rules of the game remain stronger than the interests around it. It means that money, power, technology, and performance pressure do not distort fairness, respect, and equal opportunity. For me, integrity is not a control function: it is the discipline of making the right choices when the stakes are highest, so that sport can continue to educate, inspire, and unite.
Alessandra Priante
Former President of ENIT SpA – the Italian National Tourism Board; Co-Chair, SIGA EUROPE Advisory Board
By measuring what actually matters. We have sophisticated metrics for performance, revenue, and audience reach. We have almost none for trust, inclusion, or community impact. Sport must build accountability frameworks that go beyond financial reporting — frameworks in which fans, athletes, and civil society have a voice. Trust is not built through communication strategies. It is built through consistent, verifiable behaviour over time.
Fernando Veiga Gomes
Partner, Abreu Advogados; Chair, SIGA Ethics Committee
Protecting trust in sport is about integrity, transparency, and accountability. All sports must adopt a clear and practical framework based on common standards.
João Paulo Almeida
Sport Integrity Expert; Co-Chair, SIGA Permanent Committee on Sports Betting Integrity
Sport can protect trust by moving from commitments to implementation. Strong governance, transparent decision-making, independent oversight, effective safeguarding, integrity education, and robust reporting mechanisms must become standard practice, not isolated initiatives. Equally important is measuring impact and holding organisations accountable for results. Trust is built when stakeholders see that integrity is embedded in everyday decisions, not only invoked when crises arise.
Nicola Allocca
Chair, Integrity and Anti Corruption Committee, Business at OECD (BIAC); Member, SIGA Permanent Committee on Anti-Corruption in Sport
Trust is not declared; it is demonstrated. Sport protects it by managing conflicts of interest transparently, enabling people to speak up without fear, and acting fairly when concerns arise. What matters is not only the values sport promotes, but what it does when those values are tested.
Alessandra Priante
Former President of ENIT SpA – the Italian National Tourism Board; Co-Chair, SIGA EUROPE Advisory Board
Adopt independent governance reviews — not self-assessments, not internal audits, but genuinely independent evaluations of how decisions are made, who holds power, and whether the rules apply equally to everyone. The World Cup ends. The governance structures remain. One concrete commitment to independent oversight, made publicly and followed through, is worth more than any integrity declaration.
Fernando Veiga Gomes
Partner, Abreu Advogados; Chair, SIGA Ethics Committee
Adopt SIGA’s Universal Standards on Good Governance, Financial Integrity, Sports Betting Integrity, and Youth Development & Protection.
João Paulo Almeida
Sport Integrity Expert; Co-Chair, SIGA Permanent Committee on Sports Betting Integrity
One practical step is for every sports organisation to adopt and implement a measurable Integrity Action Plan, with clear objectives, responsibilities, monitoring indicators, and regular public reporting. Integrity should be managed like any other strategic priority: with leadership, resources, accountability, and continuous evaluation. Only then does it become part of organisational culture rather than a response to crises or major events.
Nicola Allocca
Chair, Integrity and Anti Corruption Committee, Business at OECD (BIAC); Member, SIGA Permanent Committee on Anti-Corruption in Sport
After the World Cup, sports organisations should turn integrity into a daily habit: make one clear commitment, assign responsibility, and show what has changed. The real test is not what is promised during a global event, but what continues when the spotlight has moved on.
Alessandra Priante
Former President of ENIT SpA – the Italian National Tourism Board; Co-Chair, SIGA EUROPE Advisory Board
Because the pressures on sport have never been greater — commercial, political, technological. AI, betting, sovereign wealth investment, geopolitical instrumentalisation: each of these forces tests the integrity of sport in new ways. SIGA provides what the industry often lacks: an independent, cross-sector framework that holds the mirror up. In a world where trust is the scarcest resource, SIGA’s mission is not just relevant. It is essential.
Fernando Veiga Gomes
Partner, Abreu Advogados; Chair, SIGA Ethics Committee
Because the foundations of sport have never been challenged on a global scale as they are today. The whole sports industry is facing new challenges. An independent Sport Integrity movement like SIGA is more relevant than ever.
João Paulo Almeida
Sport Integrity Expert; Co-Chair, SIGA Permanent Committee on Sports Betting Integrity
A global movement like SIGA has the potential to become a leading force for Sport Integrity by promoting common standards, cooperation, and practical implementation. That role, however, depends on demonstrating genuine independence, leading by example, and holding itself to the same standards it expects from others. Only credible organisations can credibly promote integrity.
Nicola Allocca
Chair, Integrity and Anti Corruption Committee, Business at OECD (BIAC); Member, SIGA Permanent Committee on Anti-Corruption in Sport
Because sport needs an independent space where different voices can work around a common purpose: making the game fairer, more credible, and more inclusive. SIGA matters because it turns shared values into shared responsibility, bringing together those who can influence how sport is governed, experienced, and trusted.
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ABOUT SIGA
SIGA is the world’s leading organisation for Sport Integrity. We are creating a whole new landscape for the sports industry by delivering independent global rating and certification for world Sport to ensure it is governed and operates under the highest integrity standards: The SIGA Universal Standards.
Funded by our Members, SIGA is a non for profit global independent organisation with one aim: To ensure the sport industry is governed under the highest integrity standards so that the values of sport are protected.
SIGA is the only organisation to bring together sport, governments, academia, international organisations, sponsors, business, rights holders, NGOs and professional services companies, from every region in the world, around a common cause of fostering greater integrity throughout sport.
SIGA is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, as a non for-profit association, and comprises of the following continental subsidiaries: SIGA AMERICA, SIGA EUROPE and SIGA LATIN AMERICA.
For more information on SIGA, including its vision, mission and reform agenda, please refer to the website: www.siga-sport.com and FAQs.
To contact SIGA, please email: comms@siga-sport.com.