Cricket Australia media release:

Major sports to work together on sports gaming integrity

Australia’s major sports will work together to uphold integrity in sports gaming as a priority activity of a new industry representative group formalised this week.

Coalition of Major Professional & Participation Sports (COMPPS) inaugural executive director, Malcolm Speed, said sport recognised the importance of continuing public confidence in the integrity of major sports’ results.

“There have been concerns about corrupt gaming’s influence in some sports in some parts of the world and the newly constituted COMPPS group sees the importance of guarding against corruption in Australian sports gaming as one of our priorities,” he said.

The chief executives of the Australian Football League, Andrew Demetriou; Australian Rugby Union, John O’Neill; Cricket Australia, James Sutherland; Football Federation Australia, Ben Buckley; National Rugby League, David Gallop; Netball Australia, Kate Palmer and Tennis Australia, Steve Wood, met in Melbourne yesterday to formalise COMPPS constitution and priorities, and appointment of Malcolm Speed as executive director. The meeting also appointed Cricket Australia CEO, James Sutherland, as the inaugural chair of COMPPS.

Sports gaming integrity was identified as a priority and the major sports agreed to share information on sports gaming integrity education, sports gaming disciplinary and code of conduct processes, and integrity processes.

COMPPS noted UK work to develop an all-sport integrity process to work collectively on sports gaming in that market but it was too early to say whether sport in Australia might take a similar approach, Mr Speed said.

“Australia has an excellent sports gaming integrity reputation which we want to maintain and as a first step, we will start sharing information within the COMPPS membership,” he said.

COMPPS has also welcomed the Federal Government’s response to the Crawford Report on Australian sport for its emphasis on encouraging community level participation in sport.

COMPPS members looked forward to maximising community participation opportunities announced in last week’s Federal Budget.

“Active community participation in sport drives a number of national benefits – physical activity improves community health but participation is also the foundation stone of the elite sporting success that is part of Australia’s identity as a nation,” he said.

Yesterday’s meeting recognised that each member is an individual and autonomous entity with independent strategies, interests and responsibilities.

But COMPPS also recognised that major sports needed to work together to promote and support sport generally; to promote community participation in sport; to promote a viable sports industry in Australia and to harness the collective resources and expertise of sport in seeking these outcomes.

COMPPS activity will include, among other activities, advocacy and representation, policy development and implementation, issues management, education, research and promotion and staging of joint events.

COMPPS has been formalised as a sports industry representative group after several years of informal, ad hoc major sports industry co-operation on common issues that arose from time to time, with joint activity of recent years to be expanded to also include community participation issues.