INTERPOL-IOC webinars for NOCs in Europe and North America
The IOC and INTERPOL have continued to jointly organise webinars, aimed at educating NOCs about the threat of competition manipulation and equipping them with the knowledge, skills and tools for prevention. In early April 2021, a session organised for NOCs in Eastern Europe and the Balkan countries attracted more than 140 participants. In mid-June, another such webinar was organised in close cooperation with the USOPC and the FBI, targeting around 100 representatives from sports organisations, law enforcement and state authorities in North America.
These educational webinars are a concrete outcome of the reframed cooperation agreement between the IOC and INTERPOL, and in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The next IOC-INTERPOL webinars will be held for NOCs in Central Asia on 7 and 8 July.
A webinar co-organised by the OM Unit PMC and Panam Sports at the end of April followed similar objectives, and brought together more than 150 NOC representatives from the region. Thanks to this event and previous efforts, all NOCs from the Americas have now a Single Point of Contact (SPOC), who is acting as an expert on the prevention of competition manipulation within each organisation.
Kendia Brathwaite, the SPOC for the NOC of Barbados, said after the session: “Thanks to the IOC-Panam Sports webinar, I had the chance to understand more in depth the risks linked to the phenomenon of competition manipulation as well as the role of NOCs in the fight against it. At the Barbados NOC, we are in the initial stages of actively implementing all the actions required, as we are committed to the adoption of rules and the development of awareness-raising activities.”
At the end of June, a similar seminar was held for 22 Arab NOCs in collaboration with the Union of Arab NOCs.