The Transparency International Bangladesh has emphasised “strengthened, robust and effective governance structures” to keep cricket, the country’s most popular sport, corruption-free.
“Bangladesh needs a specific organising structure to get rid of match-fixing, spot-fixing and other forms of corruption in cricket,” TIB’s Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said at a media conference launching the Global Corruption Report: Sport yesterday.
It claimed sport generated annual revenues of over $145 billion globally but attempts to tackle corruption were still at an early stage.
Iftekharuzzaman said corruption practices had extended to all levels as sports involve huge amount of money. The TIB mentioned activities of foreign gamblers, punishment of a young Bangladeshi cricketer for match fixing and illegal role of a club in the Bangladesh Premier League, saying these were the barriers to good governance in the country’s sports sector.
As of April 2015, at least 22 cricketers including one from Bangladesh had been penalised for corruption. The TIB also suggested strengthening the Anti-corruption Unit of the Bangladesh Cricket Board by formulating stern laws to protect cricket from being tainted as it was “vulnerable to corruption” after eventually becoming a “money-making mechanism”.
Replying to a question, the TIB boss said they had chosen cricket as the case study as it was most popular in Bangladesh.
In a prepared speech, Iftekharuzzaman said: “An independent, permanent Office of Ombudsman for Cricket should be set up by law, and endowed with the power to investigate and prosecute allegations of corruption and irregularities in the game.”
