Context: This was the first paper for this particular conference. It was written by me for my second major delegate-based conference, and the stakes were pretty high (it's one of the largest inter-school conferences; very advanced + one of the oldest high-school MUN conferences in the country + popular amongst a lot of GEMS Indian schools). I ended up winning 1st Best Delegate, 2nd Best Position Paper, and 3rd Best Speech (in my first year as a 9th grader), one of the youngest to ever pull off this feat.
[Committee: United Nations Office On Drugs and Crime
Delegation: Canada
Agenda: Addressing Corruption In International Sports Organisations]
'“The duty of the youth is to challenge corruption.” – Kurt Cobain
In our modern era, we see the rise of many trends
in all of the societies we live, work and interact. But we can see that there
are a special set of trends which increase by the hour in our world, instead of
waning away. We, the delegation of Canada, are here to present our stances and
our solutions, to counter the vile trend that has firmly taken hold of some of
our most beloved institutions like, the International Olympic Committee, the
International Federation of Association Football, the International Federation
of Basketball, and the International Federation of Chess and destroyed them
under the banner of corruption. We are here to expose the problem, state
actions that we have taken, and propose solutions.
According to the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), the definition of corruption within sports is the process of committing crimes such as match-fixing and others in sports which are a way for organized syndicates to generate high profits and launder their illegal proceeds, with limited risks of detection. The stance that we take is that we are firmly opposed to corruption which has harmed the lives of many people indiscriminately and are determined to resolve the global issues that have conferred upon all of us. We would like to present statistics in favour of this proposition. In 2021, the estimated global annual profits from betting-related match-fixing were €165 million with the football betting market being deemed enormous and valued at around $1.7 trillion according to Europol, or roughly 10 per cent of the GDP of the EU and the U.S., respectively. In connection to the high profile case, FIFA executives received over $150 million in bribes for 2 decades and the realm of basketball, whilst the FBI arrested 4 NCAA basketball coaches for fraud and corruption charges. With all of these cases stacked up against the world of sports, it is no wonder that we are proud to be supporting all the efforts against the proliferation of corruption in international sports organizations, has boldly stood for addressing corruption at the highest levels, and has strongly condemned any organization that goes against the ethics of sports.
Now the question may arise in the readers’ heads as
to why Canada has the legitimate right to tell the world how to address
corruption in sports organizations when Canada is a greenhorn in this very
subject. We assert that we have the legitimate right to speak because the
nation of Canada has dealt first-hand with such corruption cases, has dealt
very strictly with such perpetrators and has demonstrated on home soil that our
model of cracking down on corruption has been very successful, and have worked
with G20, the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD), the Organization of American States (OAS), the
Commonwealth, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
and various development banks. We have also ratified treaties like the UN
Convention against Corruption and the OECD Convention on
Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business
Transactions. Hence, we have set up the platform upon which we speak and
challenge the world to resolve these challenges.
With these issues at hand, we would like to propose
some solutions to alleviate the complications that have been caused up till
now. Thus, we would like to put forth some solutions, keeping in mind all sides
of the conflict. The following measures are:
- Calls
upon all sports federations to increase transparency at all levels and
give more access to information about:
a) The financial history of huge sports organizations
to preserve the sanctity of the sports organizations by consistently checking
for illegally obtained funds,
b) Tie-ups with major companies for the financing of
major sporting events to avert crises such as the 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's
basketball corruption scandal in the future,
c) The track record of individual athletes and
referees to control the number of illegal activities being performed,
- Calls
upon all sports federations to improve upon the following criterion:
a) The whistleblower system in these sports
organizations should be strengthened to improve the morality of that
organization,
b) The system of sanctions in these sports organizations should be strengthened to prevent corruption in the bidding process of the FIFA World Cup, specifically about sanctioned countries like Russia.
The delegation of Canada would like to conclude by
stating that the task in front of us is not easy and we will face challenges,
but we believe that together, we can solve these challenges permanently.
Bibliography:
1) https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/Corruption/Corruption-in-sport
3) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/26/ncaa-arrests-corruption-fraud-college-basketball
4) https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/bribery-corruption/2021-2022.aspx?lang=eng
6) https://www.transparency.org/en/news/how-to-stop-corruption-5-key-ingredients
7) https://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/here-are-10-ways-fight-corruption
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_NCAA_Division_I_men%27s_basketball_corruption_scandal'
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