“Athletes and players are not always aware of the risks”

As the leading French gaming operator and among the world leaders in this category, FDJ set up a sport integrity department in 2015, led today by Antoine Béghin, Director of Sponsorship and Integrity and former member of the French Olympic rowing team.

What is the role of the Integrity Director at the FDJ?

FDJ is a committed player committed to preserving the integrity of sport. Since 2015, we have set up a sport integrity department. Our missions are to carry out preventive actions to raise awareness among sports players (athletes, referees, coaches, etc.). It also involves taking an active part in monitoring the integrity of sporting competitions and cooperating with all stakeholders, whether sporting, public or private, in France and internationally, to protect sport against the risks of manipulation. FDJ has also been a member of the national platform for the fight against the manipulation of sporting fixtures since 2016.

What can you do about match-fixing?

As a sports betting operator, the FDJ group has for many years been involved in combating external match-fixing linked to betting. These forms of manipulation damage trust in sporting competitions and the integrity of betting, and justify strong measures. The FDJ was entrusted by the state with missions, backed up by decree in 2019, to do with putting in place tools for detecting atypical betting behaviour, with FDJ participation in the national platform. In the context of its monitoring mission the FDJ passed on 23 alerts of suspicious betting behaviour to the national platform in 2023.

The FDJ also helps monitor international competitions alongside other European and global lotteries and directly through its presidency of the United Lotteries for Integrity in Sport (ULIS). With ULIS, in 2023 the FDJ took part in monitoring the Women’s World Cup and the Rugby World Cup. We will also be involved in 2024, for the Euro 2024 and the Paris Olympics.

Still at the international level, the FDJ contributes to the European Council’s ACT project (Addressing Competitions’ Manipulation Together), implementing the Macolin Convention, which was launched in 2014 and came into force on 1 September 2019. The convention is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Various countries should take advantage of this anniversary to ratify it and join the 10 countries that have already done so. This convention is the only rule of international law for effectively combating this scourge. Lastly, the FDJ is part of the Group of Copenhagen, run by the Council of Europe, composed of about forty National Platforms.

What do you do when it comes to prevention?

For more than ten years we have been designing a programme for raising awareness about match-fixing linked to gambling and the legally-defined ban forbidding athletes and players from betting on their own sport.

In 2023, awareness-raising schemes were run for 950 sport stakeholders, including the French basketball, rugby and handball federations, our partners the OM and PSG football clubs and young people from various training centres and INSEP.

These training courses show athletes and players some of the risks to which they themselves are exposed and also explain clearly the ban on betting and the sanctions they could face.

The FDJ includes “Integrity” clauses in its sponsoring contracts. How do you estimate the maturity of the stakeholders in this matter?

The FDJ is a traditional supporter of French sport, as a betting operator, and also through a levy on bets placed, which has been funding French sport for 40 years via the national Sport Agency. These are the bases of a coherent, committed, responsible sport sponsoring structure. All our sporting partnerships include a diversity element and a betting-integrity element. I believe in a global awareness, even though more frequent checks always lead to sanctions. Most of the time, I think, athletes and players are not aware of the dangers or of the fact that betting on the whole of their sport, not just matches when they are involved, is forbidden.

We often hear that cheaters are always a step ahead. Which are the challenges of tomorrow’s sport?

Increasing cooperation between States, sporting bodies, the police and the operators. Measures such as the Macolin Convention are so many international benchmarks helping to move things forward and detect illegal situations. It is vital to combat illegal betting sites, because often these sites are linked to organised crime.

This article was published in the magazine Sport and Citizenship n°57 : protecting sport integrity