Watch Play The Game 2009 live on the web

Great stories unfold as the sixth conference on sport and society, Play the Game 2009 takes place in Coventry, June 8-12.

Last minute registrations can be made by clicking here and the full progamme is available here.

If you are unable to join the conference, you will still be able to follow some of the interesting debates through live streaming on our streaming page.  Alternatively, all streamed sessions can be watched on demand after they take place.

The schedule for which sessions will be streamed is also on the streaming page. Please note that the schedule is subject to change.

Watch Play the Game 2009 live at playthegame.org/2009live

The greatest stories, at Play the Game 2009

How could 138 million Swiss franc end up in amateur sports leaders’ private bank accounts? The biggest corruption scandal in sport so far will be analysed by Jens Weinreich, German sports blogger and former sports editor of Berliner Zeitung.

Are anti-doping rules in conflict with human rights and civil liberties? The Director General  of the World Anti-Doping Agency, David Howman, will be challenged by Yves Kummer, president of European Elite Athletes Association, and by Herman Ram, CEO of the Anti-Doping Authority of The Netherlands.

There is a cocaine connection in sport - and the famous Italian anti-doping researcher Alessandro Donati will unveil it as an extension of his groundbreaking research into the illegal sports drugs trade presented at Play the Game 2005.

Three-times Tour de France winner Greg Lemond will give his testimony to the fight against doping, drawing on his expertise as a former elite athlete and a present director in the fitness industry.

Is there a need for a global anti-corruption institution in sport? This issue will be debated by numerous speakers, including the IOC member and former WADA-president Richard W. Pound, who ten years ago was the driving force in introducing transparency reforms at the IOC.

Don't Bet On It, says the ex-mobster Michael Franzese who used to fix sports results and earn big money in the U.S. Mark Davies, Managing Director of Betfair, will definitely not back this advise up, but they agree -- and so does author of "The Fix", Dr. Declan Hill –- that sport is facing its most serious threat so far, coming out of the gigantic illegal Asian gambling market.

Will sport be affected by the world economic crisis? William Gaillard, personal advisor to the UEFA president Michel Platini, will give his view -- and a number of experts headed by the economists Stefan Szymanski and Wladimir Andreff will provide the data.

Has the Olympics in Beijing already brought about a positive change for China, Chinese sport and human rights? Hear what the Chinese professor Hai Ren concludes, and listen to the evaluations by Amnesty International and the International Federation of Journalists.

Why shouldn't female cyclists and ski jumpers be allowed to compete? Discrimination on the grounds of gender is a main theme for Laura Robinson, winner of the first Play the Game Award in 2002.

Handball is being hijacked by its own president, says Christer Ahl, who will retire as president of the International Handball Federation Playing Rules and Referees (PRC) Commission at a congress a few days before Play the Game. Hear his account of match fixing and mismanagement at the helm of handball.

Watch the following sessions live

8 June
Opening session 14.00 – 17.00 
Sustainable football financing – 19.00 – 21.30 


9 June
The global arms race in sport: Consequences for the elite and the populations 08.30 – 11.00 
Lessons from Beijing 2008 16.30 – 18.30 
Match-fixing – 20.00 – 22.30 
 

10 June
Ten years after the IOC reforms: The state of governance in sport 08.30 – 12.00 
 

11 June
New challenges to the global struggle against doping 08.30 – 11.00 
Sport for Development 16.30 – 18.30 


12 June
Mega-Events: Can they drive development? 10.00 – 12.30 
Closing session 13.30 – 15.00