In collaboration with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), INTERPOL and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) conducted a two-day workshop in Doha to develop a national approach on sports integrity.

The 'Integrity in Sport' event brought together more than 100 representatives from Qatari law enforcement, government, sports bodies and the Olympic movement with international experts from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Council of Europe, FIFA and the Athletics Integrity Unit to review and highlight existing legislation, international instruments and best practices to protect major sport events from competition manipulation and other breaches of integrity.

Brigadier Ibrahim Khalil Al Mohannadi, Head of Consultancy Office at the SC, said: "Such initiatives aim at providing a safe environment for the management of safety and security operations in general and in major sporting events in particular. These workshops form part of a global capacity-building and training programme to help countries meet the new criminal challenges posed by competition manipulation, corruption and other threats to the safety of sport."

The event also provided an opportunity for INTERPOL to link up with potential new investigators for its Match-Fixing Task Force, for the sharing of information, intelligence and best practices.

José de Gracia, INTERPOL Assistant Director, Criminal Networks Sub-Directorate, said: "In recent years, the manipulation of sports competitions has become a mechanism for profit of organised crime structures. One of the key learnings of this training is that cooperation and information sharing is crucial. This is why stakeholders in law enforcement, government and sports have come together to discuss how we can build a global network to tackle competition manipulation."

INTERPOL and the IOC recently expanded their joint global capacity-building and training programme until 2021 to protect the integrity of sport.

H.E. Jassim Rashid Al Buenain, Secretary General of Qatar Olympic Committee, said: "The IOC and INTERPOL are among the top entities we cooperate with to form the umbrella that helps shape honest and fair competition, where hard work does not go unrewarded and wrongdoing does not go unpunished. Integrity entails credibility, and the credibility of competition and sports organisation is one of the key pillars of the Olympic Agenda 2020."

Project Stadia, which was established by INTERPOL and the State of Qatar, also facilitated and participated in the event. Project Stadia aims to create a centre of excellence and good practice platform to help INTERPOL member countries plan and undertake security and cybersecurity preparations for major sporting events.