Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the committee for the important work that it has done in going through the fine details of this in the inquiry that it held. I also want to commend the Government for actually getting on with ratification. I am very conscious that a lot has happened since 2018, not only political battles to do with Brexit but the issue of Covid, so it is fair play that they have taken up the opportunity to ratify.

I am somewhat daunted to be here with two Olympians. My greatest achievement is helping noble Baronesses to win our tug of war earlier this year, but I am a lover of sport, and I must say that the latest frustration continues to be about how VAR got it wrong. Nevertheless, sport matters in so many ways; we see that when the country comes together, and when the world comes together at significant moments, whether that is for the Paralympics, the Olympics, or the World Cup, of whichever sport you like. Indeed, we are united in trying to make sure that there is a fair game, and that the hand of God is not the way to win, nor the doping, which has been referred to. It is why it needs to be fair, and that governing bodies around the world need to make sure that it is fair.

One thing that still is finally getting sorted is the fact that women will have a fairer chance now that many more sporting bodies are not allowing biological men to go into those sporting competitions. Many women have lost out on medals, and indeed that sense of fairness.

Nevertheless, I appreciate today that the convention is really about match fixing. It is about money and about tackling crime and it is important that we keep focused on that. Earlier this year, we heard about “clickgate” in Saltburn. Somebody was clicking their fingers, pretending that somebody was out. I do not know if it was about money or just trying to get that cricket club higher up the league but, yet again, it resonated across the country as being something pretty grim.

I think it is a couple of years since David Coote from the Premier League made comments about a particular football manager. Although he was never charged with corruption in terms of this sort of thing, basically he was not allowed to referee a Premier League match again—I have forgotten the exact name of the company. Indeed, in a different way, he got his comeuppance and showed his true, really despicable, behaviour when he was convicted earlier this year of child pornography offences.

It attracts all sorts of odd people, this ability to be prepared to sell and be sold—to sell your soul just for your own fix. That is why sports betting is very mindful of the issues. I am a big fan of prediction markets and do not necessarily want to see them constrained, but the big issues with them are particularly difficult, and how we get that information shared around the world is quite extraordinary.

I am a Liverpool fan. I recently was at Anfield for the Liverpool v Forest game with a group of friends and had a different sort of experience. I had not even heard of this thing. I was asked, “What do you think will happen in this match?”. I said: “I think X”—I will not name X—“will get a yellow card”. I was quite surprised that X did not get a yellow card given the behaviour on the pitch; however, this was one of six things that together added up to a kind of a playful bet. Somebody else said X would get an assist or whatever. I had not realised that this was going into a bet. I thought we were having a chat about football and the match ahead of us. It was only, I think, a £1 bet, but it did make me think, and it is one of the main reasons I am here today, about what we are doing. I think gambling can be positive—I know it has its downsides—and the betting companies should think again about what they are doing and what kind of behaviours they are trying to encourage when somebody is watching sport.

I appreciate how much regulation there is already in this country and, while this is about online betting, I think the real issue lies with offshore betting. I want to commend the Group of Copenhagen countries. They came together, as the Council of Europe recognised, for the FIFA World Cup, monitoring 104 different matches and working with the FIFA Integrity Task Force. I do not know the outcome of that, but I will be asking that question when I am at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly soon where I am a substitute member on the committee that covers sport.

We have a certain amount of regulation already which probably covers what we need, but are there any gaps? I think only two sections of the Gambling Act 2005 apply to Northern Ireland, what are we doing to make sure that there are no gaps in the different bits of legislation that cover the entire United Kingdom as we put this ratification into force? In terms of the Information Commissioner working with the SBIU, I cannot give a direct example, but there is definitely an issue about aspects of GDPR and the tipping point for the SBIU to hand over information to the police and CPS where it might suspect something is happening. What can it do about that? Indeed, will there be any new protocols to make sure that the authorities not only ratify the Macolin convention but put it into practice?

Finally, I have a question for the Minister. I am very conscious that, with ratification, we gain more access to national platforms and different ways that this can be done in the future. The work with Interpol can still happen now without us having ratified it. But, in terms of our own prioritisation, I fully understand that the NCA will be focused on terrorism, trafficking and all sorts of things. Where will this come in the pecking order, and what is being done within DCMS to see whether different targets will be put in place or whether there can be some different, helpful funding to the NCA to be able to consider this further?

We already know that the CPS does not prosecute unless there is a high level of evidence, so I do not think we are going to see many prosecutions out of this. But we have to try to see deterrence and frustration of the money flows to try to shut down these channels of illegal behaviour. I look forward to the Minister’s response and I will certainly report back to my noble friend some of the reaction on my return from Strasbourg and the Council of Europe.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, I declare my interest: I am a full member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I am not a member of the committee that has been dealing with these matters, although I may have voted at some stage on associated matters in the parliamentary assembly.

All the contributions that we have heard today have been incredibly powerful and have amplified the need to make sure that this convention is ratified. I pay my tribute to our chair of the International Agreements Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, who has shown a dogged belief in making sure that this Parliament —both Houses—have a proper way to scrutinise international treaties. I am sure that he will continue to fight that corner on behalf of our Parliament to make sure that, when international treaties such as this come before us, we are properly able to investigate, to look in detail and to draw evidence as necessary to make them work.

In that respect, we are very grateful to the Government for giving us extra time to look at this one, but we are being very careful at the moment because we do not ask every time—otherwise it can lead a change to the way that the law is in front of us. CRaG is useful but it is not yet totally suitable given how these investigations should take place.

I will try to refer to a number of contributions. A number of noble Lords asked why there has been a delay. Paragraph 30 of our report says that the Explanatory Memorandum, which comes with this application, explains that ratification of the convention has been delayed due to “competing priorities”, including Covid-19 and

“the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union”.

This is the Council of Europe, not the European Union. It has nothing to do with the European Union. Perhaps the Minister can explain why that came in the evidence provided to us from the DCMS because, quite clearly, that confusion between the Council of Europe and the European Union is not going to help us in the future. I will reach the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on Council of Europe activity at the very end of what I am about to say.

As we know, this is to be welcomed, because it is the first international binding agreement on this very important international or transnational issue—whatever you want to call it. The consequence of manipulation is very complicated indeed. One of the advantages that we will have now, of course, is that we are a member of the follow-up committee body called the Group of Copenhagen—the GoC in the parlance. We will have membership of that instead of just being associated with it and not being able to take anything forward. It is worth taking a look at the Council of Europe’s definition of “manipulation”, because many noble Lords have used examples of what it might or cannot mean.

Very briefly, the core elements of manipulation are: first, that it should be an intentional arrangement, act or remission; secondly, that whether it is or is not successful, it is an attempt to improperly alter the result or the course of a sports competition; thirdly, that it is to remove all or part of the unpredictable nature of sports competitions; fourthly, that it is to obtain an undue advantage for oneself or for others; fifthly, that the intention of manipulation is there even if the intention is unsuccessful and fails to obtain the undue advantage; and, lastly and importantly, that the undue advantage always has a financial dimension, either directly or as a consequence of the sports competition manipulation. Exploitation of betting markets is just one of the many ways of obtaining an undue financial advantage.

We are therefore dealing here with a multiple manipulation consequences issue. It is not straightforward, but it has a context. That context was explained at the beginning by my noble friend Lord Addington, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and many others. It affects what we might call the integrity of and investment in the industry. I just specify that all the documentation from the Council of Europe has one word on the front to explain what it is about: “trust”. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, talked about the reduction in trust if this happens. Trust is the password by which it happens.

Another thing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, mentioned, is that we are now talking about minor areas of sport as well. She called it the minor league—well, as a supporter, in small amounts of cash, of the Newport County second division football team, I must say that I am very conscious that, as a member of the supporters’ club, my £5 or £10 a month may be going astray. Also, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, was right that this is about dealing with syndicates. This is a multinational operation. Often, the person being asked to manipulate directly could be in one country, the person seeking and asking that person to manipulate could be in another country, and the person seeking to benefit financially from it could be in yet another country. This is manipulation on a grand scale, and we therefore need to tackle the syndicates.

On the binding nature of member states taking action, the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, thankfully raised a question about the reservation; I had difficulty in stating what the ambition was in this reservation of the UK Government. Thankfully, he has asked all the right questions. I look forward to every single answer to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, so that I may understand the consequence of the reservation, particularly in respect of the matter he raised about France’s expectation, which would be quite different and perhaps more suitable. I wait for judgments to be heard around the Floor.

The most important thing is that we are going to have an opportunity to work with a body that has some considerable powers—the follow-up committee—which can formulate proposals to further enhance the establishment, operation and development of national platforms. It has a role in the framing of domestic criminal offences where each party, each country,

“shall ensure that its domestic laws enable to criminally sanction manipulation of sports competitions when it involves either coercive, corrupt or fraudulent practices, as defined by its domestic law”.

So it will have a broad picture of what is happening in order to ensure—in a useful precedent for what should happen—that domestic laws live up to the intentions that are in a convention of this sort. That is very important.

Further to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about doping, I know from the work that is being done by the follow-up body on the convention that it does not regard doping and manipulation as separate items. They are very closely linked indeed. That combination is talked about in Article 13 of the follow-up committee’s rules—they have to look at all the conventions and all the issues related to these matters, which are in the public domain for Council of Europe members. The signatories, as the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, said, are much greater than just simply those on the European continent.

I am not trying to denigrate what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, was saying, but it seems to me that it is not an either/or as to who must act in these situations. It is not either Governments, collectively or on their own, or international sporting bodies—it is both. There is a role for both to be playing here. What we are dealing with is perhaps sending the right signals to international governing bodies of sport but at the same time trying to ensure that we have bedded down some very important points in relation to the actions that are possible with those who have signed and ratified this convention.

I conclude with a remark that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, addressed to the noble Lord who is speaking on behalf of the Official Opposition. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, might say about these matters, but I remind him that this is a convention of the Council of Europe. If we were to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, we would no longer be a member of the Council of Europe.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

Not true.

[Lord German (LD)]

It is absolutely the truth, and I am going to quote, because I committed this to memory. The Secretary-General, on behalf of the Committee of Ministers, has said on more than one occasion—and maybe the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, was not there at each one—something straightforward: he said that membership of the Council of Europe is incompatible with leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. I think that is worrying for those of us who believe that these international agreements are very important to us all. We in this country have signed over 200; some we have ratified and some we have just signed. It is a huge body of activity that we want to join and be part of. Leaving the Council of Europe would mean that we would lose our right to have all these extra powers that we are going to get from being part of the group of people who are taking forward this convention. Therefore, I support the clear position that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is taking, but I think it is very important for this Grand Committee to know the consequence of all this.