Qatar Stars League (QSL) has zero tolerance towards match-fixing and is well-known for its professionalism and integrity, its CEO Hani Taleb Ballan said yesterday. Ballan was speaking during a panel discussion at the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) inter-regional summit at the Marsa Malaz Kempinski in Doha.
The two-day summit is addressing the key issues facing sport, including an examination of the global challenges, regional approaches and the strength of international cooperation in driving integrity in sport. While talking on the subject of ‘Championing Sport Integrity on the field of play’, Ballan said QSL has put up a right structure in place since 2013 to make sure matches conducted by QSL are monitored.
Apart from Ballan, Salman al-Ansari, vice-president of Qatar Sports Arbitration Foundation (QSAF), Jassem Mohamed al-Jaber, Education and Student’s Affairs School Principal at Aspire Academy and Rod Buckingham, Director of Security at Canadian Football League, spoke on the subject.
“I am privileged to be here to reinforce SIGA’s message of integrity in sport. QSL believes in zero tolerance and with help of the International Centre on Sport Security (ICSS) we have ensured integrity in our football. ICSS helped us establish regulations and we now have monitoring of matches,” said Ballan.  “ICSS has helped us to set up regulations and also monitor all the events that QSL conducts. We are very happy that there is utmost integrity in QSL,” he added.
The QSL CEO also said that educating players and officials can go a long way in preventing malpractices in sport.  “We have conducted workshops with players, match officials and administrators to educate them about ill affects about match-fixing and the prevention of it. There is always risk. You will have people drawn towards fixing and will find unfair ways to win matches. Our job is to make sure we work towards our defence of preventing unlawful acts in sport. We are pleased that integrity is foremost of our focus at QSL. And we will be very happy to continue the message of integrity in Qatar football,” Ballan added.
Salman al-Ansari said transparency from sport bodies and creating awareness among players from young age would prevent corruption in sport.
“Sometimes we find situations where younger players who would not understand that match-fixing is a serious violation. They think its $500 or $1000, lose a match and that’s it. The awareness of the players would help, and also the transparency of the organisations,” he said
“I do believe personally that regional and international organisations need to be more transparent in the process of their decisions on how they punish the players or officials. Transparency is key in whatever we do in sports,” added al-Ansari, who is also deputy chairman of the Appeals Committees at the Asian Football Confederation.
Aspire Academy’s Jassem Mohamed al-Jaber, while speaking of establishing integrity in young students through sport, said Aspire’s aim is to develop its students as heroes of their community.
At Aspire, we not only develop our athletes in sport but also their personality. There are policies that are put in place where we reach them about integrity, trust, loyalty and truthfulness not just on the field but off it as well. We teach them about good values,” he said.