The Convention on the manipulation of sports competitions four years after its approval

The approval of the Convention on Manipulation of Sports Competition (s.c. Macolin’s Convention) by the Council of Europe can be considered a milestone in the fight against sport fraud: it is the first international legal text on the matter, having vis cogens for those states that will sign it. It is the final step of a long way, developed more intensively in the last 20 years, in the awareness of the need to keep unchanged sports values, because of its specific educational function. Like any international convention, the regulatory text has strengths and weaknesses, due to the nature of the matter. It is sufficient to consider on one hand how sport does not always fall within the regulatory competence of the State, and on the other hand how fraud is really difficult to define in order to achieve an effective prosecution. Despite this, the approval of the Convention has been greatly appreciated, in the hope that it will effectively influence the increasingly widespread phenomenon of sports fraud, which is undermining the integrity of sport in the world. Now, trying to draw conclusions 4 years after the approval of Convention, there is a substantial lack of fact: despite a strong commitment by the Council of Europe on the matter, the Convention has not entered into force. What are the reasons?