Integrity: workshop held with the Women’s Under-19s

The San Marino Women’s Under-19 National Team, who are about to take the field in front of their home crowd in Group B1 of the UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship qualifiers, met last Monday with Massimiliano Rosti – Integrity Officer for the San Marino Football Federation. In line with UEFA’s renewed approach, which calls on individual Integrity Officers to organise educational and awareness-raising meetings at local level, addressing male and female players directly, Rosti introduced the Biancazzurrine to the risks and dangers linked to match-fixing and manipulation of matches. Firmly entrenched as a phenomenon, it is the focus of attention of Europe’s highest sporting and investigative authorities, which for some time have been acting together to defend the integrity of sport and to combat criminal organisations – very often the driving force behind this distorting process. The young San Marino players were thus able to gain awareness of the legal obligations, both in sporting and criminal law. In addition, Rosti outlined the mandatory reporting procedures to be followed in the event of incidents – even merely suspected ones – that may threaten the integrity of football competitions. It is worth recalling that this specific offence is the only one that also provides for fairly severe sanctions for failure to report. In practice, this places responsibility on any witnesses or recipients of illicit approaches, even if they turn down the offer.