Speed calls for racing-cricket ties to fight corruption

Dubai: Racing and cricket can learn most from each other in the field of fighting corruption, according to the International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive, Malcolm Speed.

After addressing the Asian Racing Conference (ARC) in Dubai yesterday, Speed revealed there had been much cooperation between the powerbrokers of the two sports to stop gambling from influencing the results in the arena.

He told Gulf News: “Ways to fight corruption might be the most appropriate lesson that we can all learn from each other.

“We in cricket have our anti-corruption people, headed by Lord Condon, and there has been lot of exchanging of information with not only racing but sports such as football about these issues.

“Illegal gambling is left to police forces to combat, but there's cooperation across the board and we believe we're on top of it. But we can't afford to relax because that would let the corrupters back in.''

Racing, like cricket, has suffered its fair share of gambling-related fraud probes but the sports also share the same ambitions of growth in Asia.

The 20 nations of the Asian Racing Federation account for around half of all prize money and betting turnover plus more than a third of breeding activity.

Financial powerhouse

And cricket's financial powerhouse is the subcontinent, featuring the world's second most populous country in India, its sixth in Pakistan and seventh in Bangladesh.

Speed pointed out the potential growth of the economies in Asia compared favourably to that in the West with a huge market ready to come on line and be exploited by all sports.

“The TV penetration in a country like India is 38 per cent whereas in the US and Europe it's 98 per cent, so there's huge room for growth,'' he explained.

“There are about 100 million mobiles in India but that will expand to 300 million in five years time.''

With the ARC being hosted in the UAE for the first time the organisers invited Speed to speak as part of a session on what racing could learn from other sports.

Other speakers were Jean-François Jeanne, senior marketing director of SPORTFIVE who discussed sports rights marketing, and Pat Williams, senior vice-president of the NBA's Orlando Magic, who spoke about the key to building a successful organisation.