Andy has been writing about the governance of sport for over 15 years. Prior to working on the Sports Integrity Initiative, he was the editor of World Sports Law Report for eight years. He has also worked for the Press Association and has written for numerous trade magazines. He has also created, chaired and spoken at numerous conferences on the business of sport, and produced the Sports Law Show for iSportConnect TV.
All posts by Andy Brown
Nobody likes to be called a cheat in any walk of life. More specifically, nobody likes to be unfairly labelled as a cheat. Even more specifically, nobody who has worked hard for years in order to achieve success in a particular area likes to be unfairly accused of cheating...
• Italy’s national anti-doping agency (NADO Italia) has sanctioned three athletes for anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs), and has provisionally suspended two, after they returned adverse analytical findings (AAFs). Triathlete Beatrice Crespan has been sanctioned with a ten month ban, expiring 26 March 2019. Paralympic athlete Massimo D’Attolico has been...
Five people have been charged with offences as a result of investigations into financial fraud in Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League, as Belgium’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office revealed the huge scale of corruption allegations uncovered by investigators. The Prosecutor’s Office did not confirm the identities of the people charged, but...
Searches have been conducted by police in six countries as part of an investigation into financial fraud in Belgium’s Profvoetbal 1A, otherwise known as the Jupiler Pro League, Belgium’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office announced. Police conducted 44 searches across Belgium yesterday morning, as well as 13 searches in other countries...
Sir Craig Reedie, President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), has written a strong response (PDF below) to Victoria Aggar, a member of the WADA Athlete Committee, defending the agency’s decision to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). Aggar wrote a public letter to Reedie last week expressing ‘serious...
• Former Russian Deputy Minister for Sport, Yuri Nagornykh (Юрием Нагорных), spoke to students at the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism about how to find a job following graduation on Friday 5 October. Nagornykh was implicated in the Independent Person (IP) Reports produced by...
An Independent Appeal Disciplinary Committee has rejected appeals from two Athlone Town players found guilty of match manipulation, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has announced. On 7 September last year, former players Igors Labuts and Dragos Sfrijan were found to have breached Rule 99, Bringing the Game into...
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has sanctioned cricketer Ahmad Shazad with a four month ban, accepting his explanation that a positive test for 11-nor-delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (THC), a metabolite of cannabis, was caused by his wife giving him his mother’s anti-cancer medication to combat nausea. As the ban has been...
In 2015, at the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich, heads of football’s national associations were quietly preparing to re-elect Joseph S. Blatter as President of FIFA, an organisation that had created its own company, ISL, to deal with kickbacks from TV contracts in exchange for votes. For years,...
• The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) of the UK Government has said that it believes Russia’s Military Intelligence Unit (GRU) to be behind cyber attacks on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), using the monicker Fancy Bears. ‘In August 2016, confidential medical files relating to a number of international...
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has launched an investigation into Russian middle distance runner Kseniya Savina, after evidence emerged alleging that she had competed in international competitions using a friend’s Ukrainian passport. ‘Ksenia Savina is currently under investigation and we are...
Austrian basketball star Kevin Payton has ben sanctioned with a three year ban, after making his urine available to a team mate in order to dupe an anti-doping test. ‘During an in-competition control conducted on 18 May 2017 in Wels during the course of an Austrian Basketball Bundesliga match,...
Yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued a Chamber Judgment dismissing allegations from footballer Adrian Mutu and speed skater Claudia Pechstein that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is not independent. However, the ECHR confirmed that the CAS’s refusal to hold a public hearing in Peschstein’s...
Genoa forward Giuseppe Rossi has been sanctioned with a reprimand after returning an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for dorzolamide, Italy’s national anti-doping agency (NADO Italia) confirmed. A carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, dorzolamide is listed under section S5 of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Prohibited List, which refers to diuretics and...
Russian middle distance runner Kseniya Savina allegedly defied a ban on Russian athletes taking part in international competition eleven times over three years by using a friend’s passport, reports MatchTV. The report alleges that both Savina and another athlete, Galina Syshko, grew up together in Crimea, which was annexed...
