Taking note of the growing menace of corruption in sports, CBI will soon set up a specialised unit to probe cases related to sports fraud, match fixing and illegal betting. Making the announcement at the FIFA-Interpol national workshop here on Wednesday, CBI Director Ranjit Sinha highlighted lack of a legal framework as the main hurdle in probing cases related to sports fraud.
“We, in CBI, have taken due notice of growing menace of corruption in sports in general and challenges in football and other sports in particular...Very soon we shall set up a sports fraud investigation unit in the CBI under special crime branches,” Sinha said in his keynote address on “Tackling Match Fixing and Corruption in Football.”
He said the unit will act as repository of intelligence and data related to corruption in sports. He also said that CBI will closely liaise and coordinate with Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to help frame policies that would build deterrence in the system. The CBI chief also said that Department of Sports is in the process to finalise a bill to criminalise sport frauds which will help to provide much needed teeth to various agencies to take stringent action and will stand legal scrutiny.
Once the capabilities of CBI are built up, Director CBI stated, the agency would act as resource base and help other agencies in training and education regarding the menace of corruption in sports.
Highlighting the instances of match fixing, Sinha said corruption in sports are financed and managed to a very large extent by the betting industry, both legal and illegal, with close links with worldwide crime syndicates.