Why spend time and money on attending Play the Game conferences in person? A journalist and an academic explain why they are coming back for their fifth Play the Game conference.

Corruption in various forms is right now on top of the international sports agenda. Some of world football’s most experienced officials will address the challenge at Play the Game 2011.

In the third contribution to Play the Game’s series on corruption and good governance in sport, Swiss journalist Jean François Tanda looks at the recent problems in FIFA and argues that the main problem is the lack of willingness to investigate corruption inside FIFA.

Watch the Play the Game press conference at German Sport University Cologne from 14 September via streaming on the web. The programmes of Play the Game 2011 and Deutschlandfunk’s seminar on sport journalism in October were presented at the press conference.

Comment: In this second contribution to Play the Game’s exclusive comment series on corruption in sport leading up to the Play the Game 2011 conference, Thomas Bach, Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), highlights the need to protect sport, which integrity, credibility and reputation are threatened by doping, corruption and manipulation of competitions.

In the run up to Play the Game 2011 taking place in Cologne early October, playthegame.org launches a series of comments on corruption and good governance in sport with exclusive contributions from high profile sport leaders and other people with insight or interest in sport governance.

Comment: In this first entry in a comment series Sylvia Schenk, Senior Advisor on sport in Transparency International, opens the sport governance debate arguing that corruption, the lack of transparency and other governance problems is an urgent challenge.

With a record number of more than 150 speakers, Play the Game 2011 is heading for its biggest and most wide-ranging conference since its start 14 years ago.