Basseterre, St. Kitts, 15 April, 2016: SKNOC President, Alphonso Bridgewater, has pledged his full support and commitment in becoming a signatory to the new Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), following the lead of The Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC) and the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC), both of whom have signed up to the Alliance as part of their efforts to improve sport integrity and governance.

Speaking at the meeting of the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC) in Port of Spain this week, in his capacity as a member of the Executive of the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC) and Chair of CANOC’s Juridical Commission, President Bridgewater said, “with SKNOC currently focused on governance issues as it continues to craft the details of its Strategic Plan for 2016-2020, the move to join the SIGA now would be well-timed.”

He said, “The independence of the alliance adds value to the credibility of any interventions while the cross- section of expertise and experience on which membership can call, lends a massive punch to pre-emptive measures that may be pursued by small NOC’s, in particular. In being progressive, SIGA is also commended for being proactive and preventative, attributes requisite in the current sporting environment to restore faith in pure and clean competition, trust-worthy and accountable leadership and to regain the support and confidence of fans, corporate sponsors and the future generation of consumers of sports products.”

About SIGA

Over 40 international organisations from all sectors of the industry have signed up to the new Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) launched in Madrid earlier this week with the aim to drive forward key reforms across good governance and integrity in sport:

The Key Principles of the SIGA are to :

• Support the establishment of an independent betting monitoring platform, capable of providing sport integrity intelligence alerts to sporting, law enforcement, betting operators and government stakeholders to assure early warning advice
• Support the establishment of independent monitoring, audit and oversight in relation to all sport-related development programs and financial transactions
• Establish international financial integrity standards, appropriate financial reporting, audit and compliance practices, a strong “culture of compliance” and full transparency in the allocation, distribution, use and scrutiny of sports development and solidarity funds
• Maintain a consistent zero-tolerance policy across the sports industry towards all forms of corruption, bribery and illicit financial dealings
• Implement the highest governance standards, including but not limited to monitoring of potential conflicts of interest, risk management procedures, gender equality at the board level, independent directors, meaningful stakeholder representation in the decision-making organs, transparent and accountable financial management and proper oversight.