A new report documents a “tyranny of cash” and widespread corruption in international weightlifting. It confirms journalistic investigations published over the past decade. Most surprisingly, the first to reveal the corruption was the sport’s president and perpetrator himself.

At a preliminary hearing in Portugal in January 2020, the man behind Football Leaks, Rui Pinto, was characterised as a blackmailer rather than a whistleblower. If the charges lead to conviction, the media's role in publishing the documents should be scrutinised, writes Andreas Selliaas.

It was not primarily the athletes that drove the radical change of the sports agenda in the decade we leave. But there are signs that athletes will be at the heart of the agenda of the 2020’ies, writes Play the Game’s international director in a wind-up of ten turbulent years in world sport.

For the first time, the International Partnership Against Corruption in Sport invited all nations of the world to join in. While other stakeholders are still kept outside, governments now seem to be engaging more in fighting corruption inside and around the organisations that run sport.

The governance structures in national sports organisations in 13 different countries will come under close scrutiny in the coming year as Play the Game initiates the third round of the National Sports Governance Observer project with a number of new partners.

Play the Game has again benchmarked a group of international Olympic federations. In spite of improvements, four out of six are still below a 50% score.

At Play the Game 2019 top speakers from IOC and UEFA along with investigators looking into corruption in FIFA will debate governance related issues in the biggest sports organisations.

When Play the Game kicks off its 11th world communication conference on society and sport the main theme will be athlete activism and the rights of athletes.