The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) has put its support behind the principles of Asia's Good Neighbour Policy and cross-border wagering on horse racing.
At its annual post-Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe meeting in Paris, the IFHA declared its official position with the ratification of a policy known as Article 28, unanimously supported at the conference and demanding that signatories 'shall respect the jurisdictional integrity of every other signatory in the provision of wagering on racing' and lobby respective governments to support the agreement and prevent operators based in any jurisdiction from breaching the agreement.
'I am extremely pleased about this agreement,' said Louis Romanet, president of France Galop and the IFHA. 'Our industry is substantially funded by the revenues from betting. New technologies like the internet have made it possible for 'pirates' to offer betting services without paying for the product they are basing their business model on. We will not sit along the sideline and watch this happen. With these principles, the entire global racing industry has joined hands in the fight against unauthorised use of the racing product for betting purposes.'
This is the first official policy on wagering from IFHA, and adds backing to what has until now been an Asian Racing Federation (ARF) initiative to combat offshore turnover 'piracy', begun by Hong Kong and Japan and subsequently agreed by 16 Asian jurisdictions.
Although the ARF nations command a high proportion of the world's wagering turnover from horse racing, this will give a strong multi-regional backbone to the principles of the Good Neighbour Policy (GNP).
Hong Kong Jockey Club chief executive, Lawrence Wong, also president of the ARF and joint vice-president of IFHA, said in Paris: 'It is important that we stop those companies that wish to offer betting services to citizens of countries where they do not have a licence. With our current agreement, we support the national integrity over betting policies and rules.' More importantly, the IFHA has agreed to an Action Plan to combat the pirating of turnover, and though it has not released details it is understood it will include the IFHA working as a trade association within established international processes like the World Intellectual Property Rights Organisation (WIPO), an organ of the United Nations.