Friday’s launch of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) at least tried to make sure the headlines were positive. SIGA describes itself as an independent and neutral coalition of more than 70 international multi-industry supporters. These supporters include not just integrity experts and the professional services companies that support the sports industry – SIGA also already includes major sponsors, leagues and rights holders such as MasterCard, the European Professional Football Leagues and the Commonwealth Games Federation.
SIGA’s organisation is in the form of collaborative working via consensus among the supporters. The following comment was released by the organisation’s interim council: “As all of our membership are stakeholders in sport, we believe we can make a real contribution to a successful and sustainable set of integrity standards for sport. We all care deeply about sport and are passionate about doing all we can to protect its integrity and ensure its long-term future.”
The launch featured SIGA’s name and its logo, and also its initial work. It seems SIGA’s members have been talking to each other for more than a year about the need to reform their industry. During that time, they have created a set of Universal Standards for governance, for financial integrity and for sports betting integrity. SIGA describes this set of Universal Standards as a “living document” that pulls together the best ideas and practices available and then makes them ready to be put into practice.
The entire sports industry, including the Olympic Movement, has been invited to join a consultation on the Universal Standards and there are descriptions of these on the SIGA website at https://siga-sport.com/. With the Olympic Summit due to meet a day after SIGA’s launch, it seems clear the landscape for issues related to the integrity of sports competitions, and to the bodies that organise those competitions, is now set to change significantly.
