Match-fixing beyond football: what UK ratification of the Macolin Convention means for sport
In brief
- The UK is on the verge of ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, commonly known as the Macolin Convention, having signed it in December 2018. The Convention is currently before Parliament for scrutiny, and the extended deadline of 12 October 2026 means that ratification could follow before the end of the year.
- The Convention is the only international treaty specifically addressing the manipulation of sports competitions. Seventeen states have already ratified it. Forty-three states are signatories in total, reflecting its reach beyond Europe. It creates a framework for cooperation between governments, law-enforcement agencies, sports organisations, competition organisers, betting operators and regulators.
- Ratification should prompt governing bodies and other sports organisations to review their integrity rules, reporting arrangements, education programmes and procedures for sharing potentially sensitive information. Organisations that begin that review now will be considerably better placed than those that wait for formal obligations to arrive.
A growing integrity threat
Match-fixing has come a long way from the back-room deals of football's past. It now reaches sports that would not, until recently, have featured on any fixer's radar. Evidence given to the House of Lords International Agreements Committee in July 2026 confirmed that the problem now extends to sports including darts, chess and skiing. Other sports such as boxing, tennis and cricket are not immune to this risk.
The mechanics of manipulation have also changed. It can involve an athlete deliberately underperforming, a player engineering a particular incident during a match, an official influencing a decision or an individual misusing inside information. It may be motivated by betting profits, sporting advantage or another financial or personal benefit.
Tennis has faced sustained scrutiny at the lower levels of the professional circuit, where players competing in smaller tournaments earn modest incomes but participate in matches on which significant sums are wagered internationally. Cricket's sustained reckoning with spot-fixing (the deliberate manipulation of individual moments within a match rather than the final result) has driven significant reform of its integrity frameworks over many years, and the sport's anti-corruption unit is widely recognised as an international leader in the field. Boxing, whose governance has attracted scrutiny well beyond individual fights, demonstrates that the problem is not always confined to the athletes themselves. And as for darts, chess and skiing: wherever there is a betting market and an information gap, there is an opportunity, and the operators who exploit it are rarely limited to one sport.
Esports is also an area of growing concern, with rapidly expanding betting markets that remain lightly regulated in a number of jurisdictions. The common thread is the growth of online and in-play betting, which means that almost any aspect of a competition can become the subject of a betting market and therefore a target for manipulation.
The House of Lords International Agreements Committee explored these international and technological dimensions of the problem across its evidence sessions on 9 and 14 July 2026. The Committee heard from the Gambling Commission, the Sports Betting Integrity Forum and the International Tennis Integrity Agency, as well as a former footballer who had been convicted of match-fixing. The evidence illustrated that organised criminal networks may use sports manipulation both to generate profits and to launder the proceeds of other criminal activity.
The Committee is scrutinising the Macolin Convention following its presentation to Parliament in June.
What is the Macolin Convention?
The Macolin Convention was opened for signature in 2014 and entered into force in September 2019. The UK signed it in December 2018 but has not yet ratified it. The Government presented the Convention to Parliament on 4 June 2026, beginning the domestic treaty-scrutiny process. The parliamentary scrutiny period has subsequently been extended to 12 October 2026.
The Convention defines the manipulation of a sports competition broadly. It covers an intentional arrangement, act or omission aimed at improperly altering the result or the course of a competition, removing some or all of its unpredictability in order to obtain an undue advantage.
That definition is important. The Convention is not limited to traditional match-fixing or to conduct connected with betting. It is capable of encompassing so-called “spot-fixing”, the manipulation of individual incidents and other conduct intended to distort the proper course of a competition.
The Convention’s central objective is to prevent, detect and sanction both domestic and transnational manipulation. It seeks to achieve this by joining together participants who may each hold only one part of the relevant intelligence: sports bodies, betting operators, regulators, public authorities and law-enforcement agencies. It is currently the only rule of international law dedicated specifically to this issue.
What does the Convention require?
The Convention does not replace the disciplinary jurisdiction of sports governing bodies. Instead, it establishes a framework within which sporting, regulatory and criminal processes can operate together.
Sports organisations and competition organisers are to be encouraged to introduce effective rules dealing with conflicts of interest, betting by participants and the misuse of inside information. Competition stakeholders should be required to report suspicious approaches or other conduct that may breach integrity rules.
Organisations should also have systems for monitoring competitions exposed to manipulation, reporting concerns promptly to the appropriate authorities and enabling individuals to disclose information safely. The Convention expressly recognises the importance of whistleblower protection and education, including education directed at young athletes.
Each state party must identify a national platform to act as an information hub. Its functions include receiving and analysing information about irregular or suspicious betting, coordinating the national response, issuing alerts and transmitting relevant intelligence to public authorities, sports organisations and betting operators.
The Gambling Commission’s Sports Betting Intelligence Unit and Sports Betting Integrity Forum together already fulfil the functions required of the UK's national platform under the Convention. The SBIU acts as the operational intelligence hub, working with governing bodies, operators and law-enforcement partners and participating in international integrity networks, while the SBIF provides the strategic framework within which those partners coordinate. Ratification would place that cooperation within a binding treaty framework and strengthen the UK’s formal involvement in the Convention’s international mechanisms.
The Convention also requires appropriate protection for personal data. This will be significant where organisations are exchanging information about athletes, officials or betting customers before wrongdoing has been proved. Information-sharing arrangements must therefore account for lawfulness, necessity, proportionality, accuracy, security and the rights of the individuals concerned.
The question of who holds inside information is also evolving, with content creators and influencers who have access to athletes and club environments increasingly falling within the Convention's framework, yet often without any awareness that their data may be shared with regulators or law enforcement.
Why ratification matters
The UK already has a comparatively developed sports-betting integrity framework. Ratification is therefore unlikely to produce an entirely new system overnight.
Its real significance lies in formalising existing arrangements, strengthening international cooperation and setting clearer expectations for every sport, not only those with substantial integrity departments or sophisticated betting-monitoring systems.
That matters because the vulnerability of a competition is not necessarily linked to its public profile. Lower-paid athletes, officials working without extensive institutional support, lower-tier competitions and events on which unexpected betting markets are offered may be particularly exposed. A governing body may also be unaware of suspicious activity if relevant data sit with an overseas operator or regulator.
The Convention recognises that no single organisation can respond effectively in isolation. A betting operator may identify an unusual market pattern but lack sporting context. A governing body may receive a report from an athlete but have no visibility of betting activity in another jurisdiction. Law-enforcement agencies may hold intelligence about individuals or financial flows that cannot be identified from sporting data alone.
The practical value of the Convention will therefore depend less on the existence of formal rules than on whether information can be shared lawfully, rapidly and with sufficient trust between the relevant organisations.
What should sports organisations do now?
Governing bodies, leagues, clubs and competition organisers should not need to wait for the ratification process to conclude before reviewing their existing arrangements.
In particular, organisations should consider whether their rules clearly prohibit all forms of competition manipulation, rather than only manipulation of the final result. Betting and inside-information restrictions should apply to the appropriate range of athletes, coaches, officials, employees, owners and other accredited individuals.
Reporting processes should be accessible, confidential and supported by appropriate protection against retaliation. Integrity training should address the circumstances in which approaches are now made, including through social media and encrypted messaging, and should explain the risks created by apparently minor requests to influence a particular moment within a competition.
Organisations should also understand where reports will be escalated, who has authority to communicate with the Gambling Commission or law enforcement, and what legal basis permits relevant personal data to be collected and shared.
Finally, investigation and disciplinary procedures should be capable of preserving evidence, protecting confidentiality and coordinating with external authorities without prejudicing parallel criminal, regulatory or sporting proceedings.
The Macolin Convention will not remove the commercial incentives behind competition manipulation. However, UK ratification would represent an important step towards a more coordinated response. For sports organisations, it is also a timely reminder that protecting integrity now requires more than a prohibition on match-fixing: it requires effective education, trusted reporting systems, careful information sharing and cooperation across borders.
How Mishcon de Reya can help
Mishcon de Reya's Sports law team works with governing bodies, clubs, leagues and athletes to ensure that policies align with evolving regulatory frameworks, including those arising from the Macolin Convention.