Insight ESPORTS Integrity Coalition
Ian Smith, Commissioner, ESIC - eSports Integrity Coalition
Ian Smith is the esports integrity commissioner. Ian is a UK lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in traditional sports, primarily in regulation and governance.
While still in private practice, Ian advised clients in football, cricket, rugby, motorsport, golf and other sports.
His particular focus has always been the connection between the athlete and the rules and regulations that govern the athletes’ professional life – contracts of employment and endorsement and the link from team to domestic governing body to regional governing body to international governing body – who owns what and who can sell what and what rules apply when!
“There are many challenges ahead, but it is to eSports’ credit that the industry is taking these steps in anticipation of a foreseeable problem, rather than in reaction to a crisis, which is the route taken by most traditional sports to date.” Ian Smith
ESIC - Founding Board Chair TBA Integrity Commissioner Ian Smith Members Director Anna Rozwandowicz Members Director Bryce Blum Anti-Doping Advisor Michele Verroken Legal Advisor Sheridans
P24 NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE /
247.COM
Te eSports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) was officially launched in London last month, where media and attendees were introduced to the first eSports Integrity Commissioner Ian Smith.
ESIC is a not for profit members’ association created to provide an overarching integrity function for professional eSports. In particular, in response to the rapidly increasing threat of betting fraud arising from a burgeoning eSports betting market, the aim of ESIC is to be the recognised guardian of the integrity of eSports and to take responsibility for disruption, prevention, investigation and prosecution of all forms of cheating, including, but not limited to, match manipulation and doping.
ESIC is open to all professional eSports stakeholders and will operate with as much openness and transparency as possible. Policy and projects will be determined by the members for the members in the interests of eSports.
ESIC has created a Programme for acceptance and implementation by professional eSports stakeholders – primarily tournament organisers and platforms, games publishers and licenced and regulated bookmakers offering eSports betting markets – that consists of a Participant Code of Conduct, an Anti- Corruption Code, an Anti-Doping Policy and an independent Disciplinary Procedure based on principles of natural justice. Te Programme can be found published in full on the ESIC website –
www.eSportsintegrity.com
Te ESIC Programme was designed to provide solutions for the threats to eSports integrity identified by the Treat Assessment carried out in 2015 and also available on the ESIC website. Te Programme owes a debt to cricket’s anti-corruption programme, widely acknowledged as one of the best systems in traditional sports having evolved over a decade and a half of dealing with real and challenging corruption and match-fixing cases in multiple jurisdictions.
ESIC is founded on Principles agreed by its members:
Integrity and Respect, Fair Process, Implementation, Education and Enforcement in Standardised Codes, Mutual Recognition of Sanctions, Sharing of Information and Confidentiality.
ESIC will now focus on finalising membership agreements with stakeholders with whom we are currently in negotiation, recruitment of additional members from across the eSports ecosystem and the implementation of the ESIC Programme in members’ terms and conditions of participation. We will also be rolling out participant anti-corruption education (a process already underway with well over 100 eSports professionals already having attended education presentations, with more scheduled) and monitoring and investigation of suspicious betting in eSports markets through the support of Sportradar’s market leading Fraud Detection System and relationships with the licenced bookmaking industry.
New eSports Integrity Commissioner Ian Smith said, “It has been eye-opening and a privilege to work in eSports these past nine months and to have gained sufficient trust within the industry to be appointed the first Integrity Commissioner. I have spent the last 20 years working across a range of sports, involved heavily in the protection of their integrity, so I am looking forward to applying all those insights and experience to the eSports ecosystem. Tere are many challenges ahead, but it is to eSports’ credit that the industry is taking these steps in anticipation of a foreseeable problem, rather than in reaction to a crisis, which is the route taken by most traditional sports to date.”
“Integrity is paramount at ESL. We were the first eSports organiser to introduce doping control at events and have since then made awareness of the issue a priority within the industry,” said Anna Rozwandowicz, Director of Communications at ESL
New eSports Integrity Coalition appoint Smith as Commissioner
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