International Partnership Against Corruption in Sport (IPACS)

IPACS was launched at the IOC’s International Forum on Sport Integrity (IFSI) held in February 2017. It is a multi-stakeholder platform with the mission “to bring together international sports organisations, governments, inter-governmental organisations, and other relevant stakeholders to strengthen and support efforts to eliminate corruption and promote a culture of good governance in and around sport”, as agreed at IPACS’ first working group meeting in June 2017.

Interest in the Partnership has grown significantly since its formation, and its aims and programme of work have been discussed at numerous international events, including the 14th and 15th Council of Europe Conferences of Ministers responsible for Sport (Budapest 2016 and Tbilisi in 2018 respectively); the conference on Safeguarding Sport from Corruption organised in implementation of resolution 7/8 on corruption in sport adopted in November 2017 by the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the OECD Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum in March 2018; calls made by the G20 leaders in the 2017 Hamburg Leaders Communiqué; the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and the inclusion of corruption in sport and a commitment to support IPACS as part of the 2019-2021 G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan.

The central body of IPACS is its Steering Committee which involves governmental representatives, international organisations and international sports organisations. The agenda and organisational modalities of the steering committee are prepared and supported by a core group composed of the Council of Europe, the International Olympic Committee, the OECD, the United Kingdom and UNODC.

The IPACS Steering Committee agreed in December 2017 to establish the following three taskforces that focus IPACS’ initial efforts on developing actionable solutions for addressing three specific areas of corruption in sport. In July 2019, it was decided to establish a fourth task force:

• Task Force 1: reducing the risk of corruption in procurement relating to sporting events and infrastructure;
• Task Force 2: ensuring integrity in the selection of major sporting events, with an initial focus on managing conflicts of interests;
• Task Force 3: optimising the processes of compliance with good governance principles to mitigate the risk of corruption; and
• Task Force 4: enhancing effective cooperation between law enforcement, criminal justice authorities and sport organisations.

The FEI, througout its Director of Governance & Institutional Affairs is represented in Task Force 3. Detailed information about the work performed by the IPACS Task Force 3 can be found here.