September 23, 2025 • 10 mins
More and more Kiwi footballers are being targeted by match fixers, and it's prompted concern across the industry.
It tends to begin like 'grooming', where the athletes will be approached with an offer of sponsorship, a trial with a club or even something as small as a pair of boots.
With the problem starting to increase, D'Arcy spoke with Sport Integrity Commission CEO Rebecca Rolls to discuss how we can protect our athletes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We joined now by Rebecca Roles. She's the chief executive
of a Sport Integrity Commission as we look at the
vext situation of sports betting through New Zealand sports and
particularly local football. High Rebecca to talk to you, and
great to have you on as well. Thanks for your time.
(00:33):
This is interesting for a number of reasons. This article
came out suggesting that todd plus million dollars was waged
on means domestic football league through twenty twenty four and
that pricks everybody's ears up. And I suppose in your
role you'll be particularly interested not only in this, but
the amount of money that's been pumped through this will
(00:55):
open your eyes much.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Oh absolutely, it's pretty i watering in fact, doesn't it.
And bearing in mind most of that is unregulated gambling,
you know you can pretty quickly sort of start to
think about what the dangers are and what football is
a good example, and it's the one talked about here,
and there's some some tangible numbers and that sort of thing,
but you know, it happens across sporting codes in New
Zealand need to be alert to it to keep our
(01:19):
people safe.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
In your role or in the Commission's role, what first
and foremost is your responsibility and is your movement toward
looking after this space? Because that suggest you can't eradicate it,
can you?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
No, no, you can't. Can't eradicate any poor behavior. Actually
you can. You can prohibit it, but it's impossible to prevent.
But look, we first and foremost raising awareness I think
around it's fixing, spot flexing, supporting organizations to protect against it,
working with our international partners to respond, and you know,
learning as much as we can along the way as well.
And that's that's for athletes, but also officials or people
(01:56):
who work with athletes and officials to really know help
them to know what netfixing looks like, how to identify
when others are vulnerable to it. And we put a
lot of time and effort into resources on our website
and some.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Micro learning it and look that will continue.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
We know it's an area that New Zealand is fairly
early in Korea if you like, or mature, and so
we know.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
We've got a journey to take people on.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
But also we know that people have hundreds of thousands
of really positive interactions in the sport and recreation sector,
so we want to keep it that way.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So very green in this area. People aren't really that aware,
but it's new I suppose because of the nature of
the timing of the sport that the distance of it,
that people are slightly more vulnerable. So you're into protecting
the athletes first and foremost, and that can only come
through through education. You can't do much else, can you.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Absolutely well, that's a big part of it, and that's
certainly where we put most of our.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Resources and the alt our context, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
We're a little bit more vulnerable because of our time zone.
We're playing sport and there's not much else on, so
you know, that makes us easy.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Pickings for that.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
We've got compared satively low pay for athletes and officials
are amateurs, so.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
You know that education can be a bit patchy.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And also the amount of sport being streamed now right
around the world, but certainly from New Zealand even at
school and community level. So you put all those things
together and you know that's sort of where we start
our discussions and start thinking about how to keep people
safe and look if as part of the work that's
baked into our Integrity Code. But if people sports are
able to prohibit behaviors around accompetition manipulation, and then we
(03:34):
can take action. So we are a regulator and can take.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Action in those circumstances.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
But look, the best action is always prevention, as you know,
so certainly that awareness raising and education is a big
part for us, and.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Knowing that we are green and.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
You know, it can look like lots of different things
in different sports, and sports themselves are the best place
to kind of think what would this look like for us?
You know, it looks different between football, netball, hockey, badminton,
anything else. It looks really different. So yeah, like those
are our kind of the platform we start from. We
know that there are links to other countries and organized crime,
and in a global sense, this is not new by
(04:12):
any stretch. There's been lots and lots of historic examples
of it. So we just need to work closely with
our organizations in this sector, agencies here and overseas to
respond and hopefully anyone who's got any concerns can they
can call us Hopefully.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What power do you have? You mentioned that you can
actually do something. What can you do and how often
do you do? You wield that.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
What we can do is we can investigate something if
there's a public interest to do it. And so I
mean what that translates to is that it's serious enough
for us to take a look at.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
We can do that now.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And when organizations sign the code, there's a bit more
we can do because under the code, behaviors like for example,
sharing inside information on injuries or that sort of thing
will be prohibited, so we can actually take steps and
in between there's always ways we can kind of intervene
by reminding people of their obligations around you know what
good and bad. But maybe it looks like keeping people
(05:08):
safe from that respect and work in a partnership with
the sports so that they know what to look for.
And I've got to say organizations have been really receptive
so far, and we know people want to do everything.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
They can to make things safe and fair.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So for those looking and starting off with us and
signing an integrity code, that's where that learning starts. And
you know, then it's a good platform for us to
increase that awareness.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So you've had buying Rebecca across all sport here in
New Zealand, there's been no resistance. Everybody sees this as
being problematic.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Well, I think, by and large, and you know you
know this from the work you do, we've got a
really great sector for passionate people who just want this
to be safe and fear like everyone so buying, absolutely,
people wanting to learn. I think there's certainly and this
isn't a criticism, it's just a product of where we've
come from. Some sports don't think they're at risk because
(06:01):
they're not high profile enough or regularly shown on TV.
But actually it's that level sport that's off easier to
manipulate or fix it because the sentims are different and
the reality is it streaming or broadcasts any event across
the world is easy and cheap to do, and that
creates sport.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Live and a device anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
What makes people, I suppose vulnerable to bookies and the like.
Who do they look for? Because I talk about Clayton
Lewis and think, well, it was such a small amount
of money to wreck his name and wreck his career,
but it's looking like he had some addictions anyway, and
they just accelerated on that. They opened that wound a
(06:39):
little more. Is that what people are looking at in
order to get people to is it that big or
can be the smallest of things to buy people into
this mess?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, Look, I can start really small, like any sort
of I guess and sport. Often it's called a honey
trap or compromising of an athlete anytime they step over
the line, just a little bit that can be used
against them. And you make a really good example there
of gambling addiction, and I know that that's quite a
common way that athletes are forced to perform a fix
(07:11):
or something like that because they're in deck with a
bookie all that sort of thing. And look, that is
the hyghend, that's the serious stuff. But in everyday life,
it's you know, looking around your own environments for people
who are sort of promising things that seem a little
bit too good to be true. Maybe a pair of
boots and might be a contract somewhere.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It's small, it's this small. We can start off on
something kind of like a new pair of boots, which
didn't seem like a great deal. I suppose to some though,
that is a great cost. It's a great amount.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Well yeah, and it can be you know, no strings
attached on its face, and then all of a sudden,
I remember those boots that they gave you. How about
you tell me who you're starting eleven is or something.
You know, I'm making up stuff now, but I guarantee
that's happening somewhere, so and you know you don't. It's
pretty hard to detect other than looking at gambling analysis
and numbers, because you know, a little thing like a
foul throw or a wider no ball and cricket anything
(08:03):
double vault or something that happens rights to a game
within a game, and so a lot of those sports
that do have those minutes within the game or those
little moments can be more vulnerable. So yeah, it can
be really really small to your the.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Best of your knowledge of football's coming to the spotlight.
He mentioned other sports are all sports in the cross
he is for this, And do you hear much about
other sports outside of the more popular ones.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, absolutely every sport is vulnerable. Every sport can particularly
and there's pretty much always a link to gambling. So
if you can gamble on a sport, there's there's a
risk basically in a matter how small. And you know,
like I've certainly had your executive say to me nobody
bets on my sport And I've said to all is
it streamed and they say yes, And I say, well,
(08:50):
I guarantee you there's some betting on it and that
that might not result in nets fixing or competition manipulation.
But yeah, I think, like anything, you've got to understand
the risk.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And if people are approached or they're unsure if it
was approach, or they smell something I think this smells bad,
they can go through to your website and work from there,
or go to their organization and alert people because I'm
sure folk out who may have been approached are nervous
and concerned if something like this happens. When you consider
the size, the amount of money, and the nature of
(09:21):
people involved in this kind of activity.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Oh, absolutely, and yes, they can absolutely come to us
and we can work with the sport and a lot
of sports that all of them probably have a way
through an integrity person or something that can be reported.
I know some of the biggest sports, I've got a
lot of good processes in place, and some sports, through
the international federations, even make it mandatory to report an approach.
(09:46):
So even if someone approaches you to talk about fixing
that has to be reported, so different sports talk about
it in different ways, but absolutely we can be the
first porter call and make sure that that information gets through.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
It needs to go.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Website, Rebecca, were can people go to find out more?
Because as you said, education is a key thing here.
You've got the resources out there, how do people find those?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Absolutely, so it's dubbed dub dot sport tegulv dot NZ
your sales on socials as well. Plenty of stuff out
there and just to point our website and have a
look around and see what what you like the look
of in terms of things you haven't heard about or
you want to find a bit more about cross competition
manipulation as well as safeguarding and antidoping.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And one last thing talking about resources, the resources.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You we are a government agency or an independent Crown entity,
so we are funded by the government but independently from
Sports and Sport and zeal And High Performance Sport and
those other agencies as well, so we sit alone from
all of them. We report to a board and through
to the Minister. So yeah, we have some resource, it's limited,
(10:45):
but which we try and spreend it as best we
can to make sure that warness gets raised
Speaker 1 (10:49):
For more from sports talk, Listen live to news talks
the'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We joined now by Rebecca Roles. She's the chief executive
of a Sport Integrity Commission as we look at the
vext situation of sports betting through New Zealand sports and
particularly local football. High Rebecca to talk to you, and
great to have you on as well. Thanks for your time.
(00:33):
This is interesting for a number of reasons. This article
came out suggesting that todd plus million dollars was waged
on means domestic football league through twenty twenty four and
that pricks everybody's ears up. And I suppose in your
role you'll be particularly interested not only in this, but
the amount of money that's been pumped through this will
(00:55):
open your eyes much.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Oh absolutely, it's pretty i watering in fact, doesn't it.
And bearing in mind most of that is unregulated gambling,
you know you can pretty quickly sort of start to
think about what the dangers are and what football is
a good example, and it's the one talked about here,
and there's some some tangible numbers and that sort of thing,
but you know, it happens across sporting codes in New
Zealand need to be alert to it to keep our
(01:19):
people safe.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
In your role or in the Commission's role, what first
and foremost is your responsibility and is your movement toward
looking after this space? Because that suggest you can't eradicate it,
can you?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
No, no, you can't. Can't eradicate any poor behavior. Actually
you can. You can prohibit it, but it's impossible to prevent.
But look, we first and foremost raising awareness I think
around it's fixing, spot flexing, supporting organizations to protect against it,
working with our international partners to respond, and you know,
learning as much as we can along the way as well.
And that's that's for athletes, but also officials or people
(01:56):
who work with athletes and officials to really know help
them to know what netfixing looks like, how to identify
when others are vulnerable to it. And we put a
lot of time and effort into resources on our website
and some.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Micro learning it and look that will continue.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
We know it's an area that New Zealand is fairly
early in Korea if you like, or mature, and so
we know.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
We've got a journey to take people on.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
But also we know that people have hundreds of thousands
of really positive interactions in the sport and recreation sector,
so we want to keep it that way.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So very green in this area. People aren't really that aware,
but it's new I suppose because of the nature of
the timing of the sport that the distance of it,
that people are slightly more vulnerable. So you're into protecting
the athletes first and foremost, and that can only come
through through education. You can't do much else, can you.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Absolutely well, that's a big part of it, and that's
certainly where we put most of our.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Resources and the alt our context, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
We're a little bit more vulnerable because of our time zone.
We're playing sport and there's not much else on, so
you know, that makes us easy.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Pickings for that.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
We've got compared satively low pay for athletes and officials
are amateurs, so.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
You know that education can be a bit patchy.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And also the amount of sport being streamed now right
around the world, but certainly from New Zealand even at
school and community level. So you put all those things
together and you know that's sort of where we start
our discussions and start thinking about how to keep people
safe and look if as part of the work that's
baked into our Integrity Code. But if people sports are
able to prohibit behaviors around accompetition manipulation, and then we
(03:34):
can take action. So we are a regulator and can take.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Action in those circumstances.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
But look, the best action is always prevention, as you know,
so certainly that awareness raising and education is a big
part for us, and.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Knowing that we are green and.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
You know, it can look like lots of different things
in different sports, and sports themselves are the best place
to kind of think what would this look like for us?
You know, it looks different between football, netball, hockey, badminton,
anything else. It looks really different. So yeah, like those
are our kind of the platform we start from. We
know that there are links to other countries and organized crime,
and in a global sense, this is not new by
(04:12):
any stretch. There's been lots and lots of historic examples
of it. So we just need to work closely with
our organizations in this sector, agencies here and overseas to
respond and hopefully anyone who's got any concerns can they
can call us Hopefully.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What power do you have? You mentioned that you can
actually do something. What can you do and how often
do you do? You wield that.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
What we can do is we can investigate something if
there's a public interest to do it. And so I
mean what that translates to is that it's serious enough
for us to take a look at.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
We can do that now.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And when organizations sign the code, there's a bit more
we can do because under the code, behaviors like for example,
sharing inside information on injuries or that sort of thing
will be prohibited, so we can actually take steps and
in between there's always ways we can kind of intervene
by reminding people of their obligations around you know what
good and bad. But maybe it looks like keeping people
(05:08):
safe from that respect and work in a partnership with
the sports so that they know what to look for.
And I've got to say organizations have been really receptive
so far, and we know people want to do everything.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
They can to make things safe and fair.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So for those looking and starting off with us and
signing an integrity code, that's where that learning starts. And
you know, then it's a good platform for us to
increase that awareness.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So you've had buying Rebecca across all sport here in
New Zealand, there's been no resistance. Everybody sees this as
being problematic.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Well, I think, by and large, and you know you
know this from the work you do, we've got a
really great sector for passionate people who just want this
to be safe and fear like everyone so buying, absolutely,
people wanting to learn. I think there's certainly and this
isn't a criticism, it's just a product of where we've
come from. Some sports don't think they're at risk because
(06:01):
they're not high profile enough or regularly shown on TV.
But actually it's that level sport that's off easier to
manipulate or fix it because the sentims are different and
the reality is it streaming or broadcasts any event across
the world is easy and cheap to do, and that
creates sport.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Live and a device anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
What makes people, I suppose vulnerable to bookies and the like.
Who do they look for? Because I talk about Clayton
Lewis and think, well, it was such a small amount
of money to wreck his name and wreck his career,
but it's looking like he had some addictions anyway, and
they just accelerated on that. They opened that wound a
(06:39):
little more. Is that what people are looking at in
order to get people to is it that big or
can be the smallest of things to buy people into
this mess?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, Look, I can start really small, like any sort
of I guess and sport. Often it's called a honey
trap or compromising of an athlete anytime they step over
the line, just a little bit that can be used
against them. And you make a really good example there
of gambling addiction, and I know that that's quite a
common way that athletes are forced to perform a fix
(07:11):
or something like that because they're in deck with a
bookie all that sort of thing. And look, that is
the hyghend, that's the serious stuff. But in everyday life,
it's you know, looking around your own environments for people
who are sort of promising things that seem a little
bit too good to be true. Maybe a pair of
boots and might be a contract somewhere.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It's small, it's this small. We can start off on
something kind of like a new pair of boots, which
didn't seem like a great deal. I suppose to some though,
that is a great cost. It's a great amount.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Well yeah, and it can be you know, no strings
attached on its face, and then all of a sudden,
I remember those boots that they gave you. How about
you tell me who you're starting eleven is or something.
You know, I'm making up stuff now, but I guarantee
that's happening somewhere, so and you know you don't. It's
pretty hard to detect other than looking at gambling analysis
and numbers, because you know, a little thing like a
foul throw or a wider no ball and cricket anything
(08:03):
double vault or something that happens rights to a game
within a game, and so a lot of those sports
that do have those minutes within the game or those
little moments can be more vulnerable. So yeah, it can
be really really small to your the.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Best of your knowledge of football's coming to the spotlight.
He mentioned other sports are all sports in the cross
he is for this, And do you hear much about
other sports outside of the more popular ones.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, absolutely every sport is vulnerable. Every sport can particularly
and there's pretty much always a link to gambling. So
if you can gamble on a sport, there's there's a
risk basically in a matter how small. And you know,
like I've certainly had your executive say to me nobody
bets on my sport And I've said to all is
it streamed and they say yes, And I say, well,
(08:50):
I guarantee you there's some betting on it and that
that might not result in nets fixing or competition manipulation.
But yeah, I think, like anything, you've got to understand
the risk.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And if people are approached or they're unsure if it
was approach, or they smell something I think this smells bad,
they can go through to your website and work from there,
or go to their organization and alert people because I'm
sure folk out who may have been approached are nervous
and concerned if something like this happens. When you consider
the size, the amount of money, and the nature of
(09:21):
people involved in this kind of activity.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Oh, absolutely, and yes, they can absolutely come to us
and we can work with the sport and a lot
of sports that all of them probably have a way
through an integrity person or something that can be reported.
I know some of the biggest sports, I've got a
lot of good processes in place, and some sports, through
the international federations, even make it mandatory to report an approach.
(09:46):
So even if someone approaches you to talk about fixing
that has to be reported, so different sports talk about
it in different ways, but absolutely we can be the
first porter call and make sure that that information gets through.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
It needs to go.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Website, Rebecca, were can people go to find out more?
Because as you said, education is a key thing here.
You've got the resources out there, how do people find those?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Absolutely, so it's dubbed dub dot sport tegulv dot NZ
your sales on socials as well. Plenty of stuff out
there and just to point our website and have a
look around and see what what you like the look
of in terms of things you haven't heard about or
you want to find a bit more about cross competition
manipulation as well as safeguarding and antidoping.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And one last thing talking about resources, the resources.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You we are a government agency or an independent Crown entity,
so we are funded by the government but independently from
Sports and Sport and zeal And High Performance Sport and
those other agencies as well, so we sit alone from
all of them. We report to a board and through
to the Minister. So yeah, we have some resource, it's limited,
(10:45):
but which we try and spreend it as best we
can to make sure that warness gets raised
Speaker 1 (10:49):
For more from sports talk, Listen live to news talks
the'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
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