VICTORIA'S top cops are growing increasingly "frustrated" at being forced to stay silent over criminal activity involving Australian sporting clubs.
As revealed by the Herald Sun today, Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton said the newly formed Sports Integrity Intelligence Unit regularly discovered criminal activity involving sporting clubs but were unable to take action because of a federal law on telephone intercepts.
"It's a very intrusive power - telephone intercepts - and therefore there are rightly restrictions on how you can use that information. We just think this is an instance where the issues around integrity in sport are growing as an issue in Australia," Mr Ashton said this morning.
Speaking ahead of today’s Sport Symposium, Mr Ashton warned match fixing - which was a "bigger threat to Australian sport than drugs" - was sprouting from international match fixing syndicates "right on our doorstep".
He said most issues identified had been linked to the racing industry, but sports which attracted significant off-shore betting such as soccer, cricket, tennis were also of particular concern.
"It has been frustrating to sit across from the Racing Integrity Commissioner, who is charged with the responsibility of the racing industry, and to be able to say, 'We know certain things, but we can't tell you what they are'," he said.
"We haven’t heard from the Commonwealth Government in any sort of public way about what they intend to do in relation to that legislation.
"Victoria Police is taking the risks posed to sport both in Victoria and across the country very seriously. Through our, we are connecting with all sporting codes and developing best practice and protection for sporting clubs."
"But it is an inevitability that if we do not take strong protective actions now, at some point in the not too distant future Australian sport will become compromised."
The Herald Sun revealed a number of jockeys and owners would be banned from horse racing today if police were legally able to reveal what they knew about them.
Mr Ashton said the force would happily tip off racing authorities about the rogue industry insiders if they were allowed to.
He said the Federal Government would have to change legislation relating to the sharing of telephone-tap and other material before that could happen.
Mr Ashton said he had no doubt several racing identities would be banned if the legislation were changed to allow information sharing.
Australians are now betting about $7 billion a year offshore, much of it on exotic bets that are illegal in Australia.
Speaking before today's Victoria Police forum on corruption in sport, he revealed:
ORGANISED crime's grip on world sport is so strong that it is inevitable that Australian matches in various sporting codes will be fixed.
OVERSEAS intelligence shows one of the fastest-growing crimes in the world involves organised crime groups corrupting sportsmen and women to fix matches so gang members can make huge bets on the known outcome.
POLICE have started lecturing AFL players about the dangers of being compromised by crime figures who want to corrupt them.
EVIDENCE gathered by the force's new sporting integrity intelligence unit suggests the risk from betting and match-fixing is greater than the threat from performance drugs.
AUSTRALIANS are now betting about $7 billion a year offshore, much of it on exotic bets that are illegal in Australia.
Mr Ashton said the growing number of Australians involved in spot betting - which involved being able to bet on one small outcome of a match, rather than the final result - was a major concern for police.
"Spot betting is the greatest risk in Australia because, from an ethical standpoint, it's more likely that people will be induced into fixing around spot betting than fixing a whole match," he said.
Mr Ashton also revealed the trend for Australians to increasingly "bet in the run" offshore also made Australian sport more susceptible to organised crime getting involved in fixing our sporting events, such as soccer, cricket and tennis games.
Betting in the run - in which bets are accepted during a game or race until just before the finish - is illegal in Australia, but is easy to do from Australia with offshore bookmakers.
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