The International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) signed an integrity monitoring agreement with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) at the House of Commons in London last night. Under the terms of the agreement, the ICSS and the CGF said that they would ‘help encourage the development of a global independent, neutral, multi-stakeholder integrity alliance for sport’.

ICSS Europe will also independently audit the CGF governance model and will help the CGF develop a code of conduct on sports betting and integrity. The ICSS said that this would include betting monitoring services to assess any potential match-fixing risk to CGF events. The signing took place at a reception in the House of Commons with the special permission of the Rt. Hon John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons.

In September last year, the CGF approved Transformation 2022 (PDF below), a seven-year plan to transform the CGF into a model for good governance in sport, expanding on its previous role as promoter of the Commonwealth Games. It said that the agreement with the ICSS represented an extension of that. “Our vision is for peaceful, sustainable sport”, said David Grevemberg, CEO of the CGF. “If sport is not legitimate, then that is an illegitimate prospect”.

At its November ‘Securing Sport’ event in New York, the ICSS announced that it planned to create a global movement to protect the integrity of sport. Speaking at the event in London, Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, CEO of ICSS Europe and Latin America, said that the partnership with the CGF would allow both organisations to build on that platform to begin to “reform organisations”.

Lord John Stevens, a member of the ICSS Advisory Board, said “it is essential and important” that there is “universal oversight of what takes place in sport”. He said that the ICSS had recognised the need for a global body to protect the sport in 2010, and welcomed the ICSS’s efforts. “It doesn’t compete in sport or dictate to sport”, he said. “It is not driven by money or any particular government”.

The ICSS was established in 2010 and formally launched in 2011. It is understood to have an annual budget of US$20 million and is currently 70% funded by the Qatar government, however it has plans to become self-sufficient by 2018. “The Qatar government has nothing to do with it at all”, ICSS President and founder Mohammed Hanzab told the Sports Integrity Initiative in November. “The ICSS is my initiative, the liability is on me. It is true that it is 70% funded by the Qatar government and 30% is funded through projects we run. I have a plan with my team that we will be self-funded in two years.”