SIGA’s Katie Simmonds spoke to John J. Byrne on his award-winning AML Now show about why SIGA was created, its reform agenda, and the progress of SIGA’s four pilot projects. Byrne is Executive Vice President of the award-winning ACAMS Today magazine. Sharing SIGA’s commitment to financial fair-play and clean sport, ACAMS (Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists) became one of the Founding Committed Supporters of SIGA in January 2017 and ACAMS’ Executive Secretary Rick McDonell serves a member of SIGA ad interim Council. McDonell is also a Co-Chair of the SIGA Steering Group on Financial Integrity, responsible for developing SIGA Universal Standards on Financial Integrity, alongside other key stakeholders such as the ICSS EUROPE, World Bank, Deloitte, PwC and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales (ICAEW).
“Without integrity on the field, sport is the ultimate loser,” Simmonds stated, explaining to Byrne that SIGA was set up as a solution to the ongoing corruption, good governance and financial integrity problems within sport. She discussed how SIGA was unique in the application of business standards to sports organisations and drew parallels between SIGA and Financial Action Task Force (FAFT).
Simmonds discussed how the mission of SIGA is to safeguard the integrity of sport through a set of universal standards and the vision is to assist with working towards a world of sport free from any form of unethical, illicit and criminal activity.
Simmonds provided an update about the progress of the four pilot projects SIGA is currently undertaking, and how the results of these projects will help inform SIGA on how to best support sports organisations in the future. The four organisations involved in these projects are the European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL), Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC), Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) and European Aquatics (LEN). Each organisation will implement SIGA’s Universal Standards, with SIGA also delivering bespoke training, education and capacity building projects for each of them.
Katie Simmonds leads the Operations for SIGA and was involved in the development of the Alliance from day one.
Simmonds is also a Director of Sports Governance and Financial Integrity at ICSS EUROPE, where she manages several tough leadership projects in these fields, such as the Financial Integrity and Transparency in Sport (FITS) Project, an innovative initiative aimed at providing, for the first time ever, a holistic, fact-based, rigorous and neutral diagnosis of the current realities and threats facing financial integrity and transparency in sport.
The full interview can be found below:
http://www.acamstoday.org/katie-simmonds-integrity-on-the-sports-field/