ioc – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

05DecDecember 5, 2017

Suspicious Games in the Champions League & the Great Olympic Scandal

Interesting week in international sports. Lets start with the Champions League where once again we have a ‘choke-point’ where games are regularly fixed. Here is the scenario. You are a UEFA investigator. The rest of the world thinks that you have unlimited resources and money coming out of your elbows. You know that if you’re lucky, the system will give you a bent paper clip and an elastic band for resources to stop corruption in Europe’s premier competition – the Champions...

23FebFebruary 23, 2017

The Cold War Spy Games Inside Sports

As the world fixates on Russian spying and cyber-attacks in U.S. politics, the field of sports has been struck by similar intrusions and Canadian athletes and organizations are among the hardest hit. The Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was warned last summer that Russian hackers were trying to breach its computer system, according to security officials and computer experts who requested anonymity to discuss the matter. The agency’s former director general, David Howman, who reported that he received death threats during...

20SepSeptember 20, 2016

The ‘Secret’ Report for WADA

Below is the confidential paper on building an investigative culture in a corrupt sports world that I wrote for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Think Tank held in Lausanne on September 20th. It was supposed to be secret but some craven twit leaked it to his pals in the media within 24-hours of it being circulated. Now that a number of journalists have read it, I have no hesitation in making it public. The headlines are: 1) World Anti-Doping Agency is not...

23AugAugust 23, 2016

Rio Olympics: 3 Gold Medals and 2 F-Marks

Back from a personal boycott of the Rio Olympics caused by the cowardly attitude of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to the Russian doping scandal. Here are three gold medals and a couple of F marks that should be awarded. Gold Medal to the Rio de Janeiro police It is hard not to like the take no prisoners attitude of the Rio de Janeiro police to senior international sports officials and spoiled athletic brats in the US swim team. Actually, ‘take no...

01AugAugust 1, 2016

If You Love Sports, Switch Off the Rio Olympics

Ten Points on the Russian Sports Doping Scandal 1. The only way to get clean, dope-free sport is for fans around the world to switch off the Rio de Janeiro Olympics: I do not write this lightly. Nor do I write about the rampant corrupton of the Brazilian construction industry, the potential spread of the Zika virus, the dangerous raw sewage that some of the athletes are being forced to compete in, the violence of the local police/criminals, the bulldozing of...

27MayMay 27, 2016

Rio Olympics: Why They Should be Postponed or Moved

A brilliant piece of public health analysis by Amir Attaran in last month's Harvard Public Health Review . This is the source research that 150 other medical experts agreed with and sent a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) asking that the Rio de Janeiro Olympics be postponed, moved or canceled. Read Attaran's words and it is difficult not to agree. I take the liberty of re-publishing the article in full because it is such an important medical...

02MayMay 2, 2016

They Have Already Failed: IOC and Interpol

Three weeks away and much to discuss. Lets begin with the non-action of the Olympic integrity officials. They have already failed. In case you missed it amidst the barrage of fancy sounding “anti-corruption” conferences and announcements from various bureaucrats about how they are fighting hard against fixing, leaving no stone turned, standing vigilant, etc, etc [fill in your favourite cliché here] you may have missed the po-faced declaration from Interpol and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about their joint campaign to...

15OctOctober 15, 2015

7 Things to Know about the FIFA Scandal

Now that Sepp Blatter has been driven off into the sunset from FIFA, it is time to reflect on the long-sorry, scandal ridden years of his reign. Seven things then that we have learned: 1) The Watergate of Sports Stories: It was not ESPN, nor any of the other big sports channels or well-established sports journalists who broke the FIFA story. The real heroes are a small collection of journalists who are largely outsiders. As the big sports media empires frantically...

03JunJune 3, 2015

10 Thoughts on Sepp Blatter’s Resignation

1- There are lots of people in the FIFA world who are far, far worse than Blatter. 2- It is possible that after the next FIFA election we could wind up with a president who will make us feel nostalgic for Blatter. 3- Blatter and his group at Zurich ran effective protection for national football federations around the world when they faced criminal investigations for corruption. From Nigeria to Iran to Greece – when governments, police forces and law enforcement have...

01JunJune 1, 2015

Loud Booing, Bridge of Lies & South African Fix

What to do if you're a Canadian soccer fan. It is very simple. Cheer the players: Boo the soccer officials. Anytime a FIFA official walks on the pitch or addresses the crowd: boo and jeer them. For good measure, make signs that denounce them. At these international events, FIFA officials’ usual trick is to make sure they are only seen on the pitches accompanied by fashion models or small children in costumes. Ignore the models, respect the children, but jeer the FIFA officials. Remember, this...