Cricket anti-corruption unit: how the ICC ACU works

The most visible piece of cricket's integrity system happens twenty minutes before the toss and never appears on television. Players and support staff walk into the dressing room and hand over their phones and their smartwatches, which go into a box that stays with a security official until the day's play is over. Nobody is being accused of anything. The devices are simply not permitted in the room, because a room that contains them contains a channel out.

That box is the physical expression of everything the cricket anti-corruption unit does. The ICC Anti-Corruption Unit, usually shortened to the ACU, is the body responsible for protecting the game from betting-related corruption, and its approach is built on removing opportunity rather than detecting wrongdoing after it happens. It runs the education, it holds the intelligence, it investigates, and it prosecutes under a written code with its own offences, its own standard of proof and its own tribunal.

The short version, before the detail. The ACU enforces the ICC Anti-Corruption Code for Participants. That Code creates five families of offence, of which fixing is only one. It binds everyone involved in official cricket, not only players. It imposes a positive duty to report approaches, breach of which is punished as an offence in its own right. And it allows an individual to be suspended before any finding is made against them.

Why the unit exists at all

Cricket did not build an integrity apparatus as a precaution. It built one after the fact.

The unit that became the ACU was established in 2000, in the immediate aftermath of a period in which the sport discovered that its results had been the subject of arrangements between players and bookmakers. The ICC appointed Sir Paul Condon, a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, to lead it and to produce a report on the state of corruption in international cricket. That report was delivered in April 2001, and the ICC's Executive Board endorsed its findings and recommendations in June of that year.

The design that followed reflected a specific diagnosis. Corruption in cricket is not primarily a problem of players wanting to lose; it is a problem of a betting market large enough to make small, private, low-risk manipulations extremely valuable to somebody who is not in the ground. A fixer does not need a team to lose a match. A fixer needs to know something the market does not, or to arrange one event the market will pay to know about in advance.

That diagnosis is why the system looks the way it does. If the currency is information and isolated events rather than results, then the controls have to sit on information flow and on individual conduct, and the offences have to reach conduct that never affected a match at all.

Anti-doping in sport had already arrived at a broadly similar structural answer, with a written code, strict liability in places, and a specialist body separate from the ordinary disciplinary process. The comparison with how anti-doping regulation is built is instructive, though the two systems diverge sharply on evidence: a doping case usually begins with a sample, and a corruption case almost never begins with anything so clean.

Where the ACU sits and what it is made of

The unit is based at the ICC's headquarters in Dubai and led by a general manager, with a chair overseeing it. Its stated purpose is to provide a coordinated capability to protect all cricket played under the authority of the ICC and its members, and it organises its work around four functions: prevention, disruption, investigation and prosecution.

The order of those four is the important part. Prosecution is last because it is the most expensive and least reliable of the four. Prevention comes first because a fixer who never gets near a player costs nothing to stop.

Operationally, the ACU deploys anti-corruption managers, drawn largely from policing and investigative backgrounds, and stations them in the game's main centres. The ICC lists managers based in India, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan and England. They attend international matches, deliver education sessions, enforce the physical controls around team areas, and act as the point of contact for anybody who has something to report.

Beyond its own staff, the ACU functions as a hub. Each full member board runs its own anti-corruption unit with responsibility for cricket in its own jurisdiction, and the ICC unit coordinates across that network, which currently covers a dozen full member domestic units and is being extended to associate members that have built their own capability. Intelligence about an individual approach in one country is only useful if it reaches the country where that individual next turns up, and the hub exists to make that happen.

• 5Minimum ineligibility for a corruption offence, years
• 6Minimum ineligibility for failing to report an approach, months
• 2Years a participant remains bound after last taking part
• 12Full member domestic units the ICC unit coordinates with

Figures stated by the ICC in its own materials and decisions. Nothing here is an estimate.

Who the Code binds, and for how long

The reflex assumption is that anti-corruption rules apply to players. The Code's definition of a participant is considerably wider, and the width is deliberate.

It reaches players, and also coaches, trainers, managers, selectors, team owners, team officials, doctors, physiotherapists, match referees, umpires, pitch curators, player agents and ICC officials. Anyone who can obtain information from inside a team or influence what happens on the field is inside the Code, because the risk is not confined to the eleven people who bat and bowl. A physiotherapist knows about an injury before the toss. A curator knows what the pitch will do. A team owner knows the eleven.

The obligation also outlasts participation. A person remains bound for a period after they last take part in official cricket, set at two years, which closes the gap that would otherwise open the moment somebody retires. A retiring player carries relationships, knowledge and access, and a rule that released them on the day of their last match would create an obvious route around the system.

Consent is how this is made enforceable. Participants agree to be bound as a condition of taking part, which is what allows a sporting body with no statutory power to compel cooperation, require the surrender of a phone, and impose a ban that no court has ordered. That contractual basis is also the reason the process is a disciplinary one rather than a criminal one, with the consequences and the limits that implies.

Article 2.1: fixing, and why an attempt is treated as the act

The first family of offences covers corrupt conduct directly. It reaches fixing or contriving the result, the progress, the conduct or any other aspect of a match. It reaches accepting or offering a bribe or other reward to do so. It reaches deliberate underperformance for a corrupt purpose. And it reaches doing any of those things in relation to another person, which is what catches the recruiter who never plays a ball.

Three features of the drafting matter more than the list itself.

The unit of the offence is an aspect of a match, not the result. Spot-fixing, the arrangement of a specific event at a specific moment, is the same offence as arranging a defeat. A pre-arranged no ball at a stated point in an innings affects nothing about who wins, and it is worth a great deal to a market that can be told about it in advance.

An attempt counts. Agreeing to fix something, or trying to, is an offence whether or not the arrangement was ever carried out. This removes the defence that a player took the money and then did not deliver, and it means the ACU does not have to prove that a match was affected in order to prove an offence.

Recruiting is separately caught. A participant who approaches another participant on a fixer's behalf commits the offence directly, which is how the Code reaches the intermediaries who do most of the actual work of corruption.

Article 2.2: betting, and why the ban is total

The second family prohibits betting on cricket. Not betting on your own match, or betting against your own team: betting on cricket at all, in any market, in any competition, anywhere.

The blanket form is intentional. A narrower rule would require the enforcement body to prove which match a bet related to, whether the participant had any influence over it, and whether the account used belonged to the participant. Every one of those is difficult to establish and easy to obscure through a third party. A total prohibition converts an evidential problem into a simple one: the question becomes whether a bet was placed, not what it was for.

It also removes the grey zone in which a participant develops a relationship with a betting operator or an intermediary for entirely innocent reasons and finds that the relationship has become a liability. Fixers typically do not begin with a proposition to fix. They begin with hospitality, then with a small favour, then with information, and a participant with no permitted contact with betting at all is a participant with no first step to take.

The prohibition extends to arranging for someone else to bet, and to accepting a share of the proceeds of a bet placed by another person. Sanctions for betting offences sit below those for corrupt conduct but are still measured in years rather than months.

Article 2.3: inside information, the offence nobody expects

The third family covers the misuse of inside information, and it is the offence that most often surprises people who assume corruption requires money changing hands for a performance.

Inside information is any information about a match that a participant holds by virtue of their position and that is not publicly available. The eleven before it is announced. An injury not yet disclosed. A decision about what to do at the toss. The condition of the pitch as the groundstaff understand it. The plan for a declaration.

Disclosing that information for reward, or where the participant should reasonably have known it might be used for betting, is an offence. The betting market prices matches continuously, and a team sheet twenty minutes before it is public is worth money to somebody positioned to trade on it. No match is affected, no player underperforms, and nothing visible happens on the field.

This is the reason for the restrictions on communication from team areas, and it is why a casual message to a friend can become a charge. The Code does not require proof that the recipient bet. It reaches the disclosure itself where the circumstances make the risk obvious.

Article 2.4: the duty to report, and the offence players actually commit

The fourth family contains the general obligations, and one of them accounts for a substantial share of the charges the ACU brings.

A participant who receives an approach or an invitation to engage in corrupt conduct must disclose full details of it to the relevant anti-corruption official without unnecessary delay. Refusing the approach is not enough. Telling a teammate is not enough. Intending to report it later is not enough. The obligation is to report, promptly, to an official.

The same family also requires participants to disclose approaches made to other people that they become aware of, to disclose the receipt of gifts, payments or benefits that could bring the game into disrepute, and to cooperate with an ACU investigation, including by providing information and, where required, access to devices and records.

The reason failing to report is punished as an offence rather than treated as a lapse is straightforward once stated. A fixer who is turned down by one player is not deterred; a fixer who is turned down and not reported simply moves on to the next name on the list, having lost nothing. The reporting duty is the mechanism by which one refusal becomes intelligence rather than a private decision. A player who says no and says nothing has protected themselves and left the problem entirely intact.

The sanction range reflects that this is a lesser offence than fixing while still being a serious one. Failing to disclose an approach carries a minimum period of ineligibility of six months and a maximum of five years.

1. 1An approach is madeA fixer or an intermediary contacts a participant, usually socially and usually without proposing anything specific at first. Nothing has yet happened that anyone outside the conversation could observe.
2. 2The participant reports itThe duty is to disclose full details to the relevant anti-corruption official without unnecessary delay. Refusing the approach does not discharge the obligation, and the clock does not stop while the participant thinks about it.
3. 3The report becomes intelligenceThe information joins what the unit already holds about that individual, that intermediary and that competition. A single report is often the piece that makes several existing fragments intelligible.
4. 4An investigation is openedInvestigators gather evidence, which in corruption cases means communications, financial records, travel and testimony rather than anything observable in the match. Participants are obliged to cooperate, and refusal is itself an offence.
5. 5A provisional suspension may be imposedWhere the circumstances warrant it, the designated anti-corruption official can suspend the individual while the matter proceeds. This is a holding measure, not a finding.
6. 6A charge is broughtThe individual is notified of the specific articles alleged and given the opportunity to respond, to admit the charge or to demand a hearing before the tribunal.
7. 7The tribunal decidesThe panel must be comfortably satisfied that the offence occurred, a standard set above the balance of probability and below the criminal standard. Sanction is then set within the range the article prescribes.

The generic route a matter takes. Many matters stop early, either because the intelligence goes no further or because no charge follows.

Article 2.5: obstruction, and why it is separate

The last family covers obstructing or delaying an investigation, concealing information, tampering with or destroying evidence, and intimidating or interfering with a potential witness.

It exists because corruption investigations depend almost entirely on material that the subject controls. There is no sample to test and no video that shows the offence. What there is tends to be a phone, a set of messages, a bank record and the willingness of other people to speak. A subject who wipes a device, replaces a handset or leans on a teammate has attacked the only evidence that existed.

Making obstruction an offence in its own right means the destruction of evidence carries a consequence even where the underlying allegation cannot then be proved. That is not a workaround. It is the standard design in any system where the investigator has no power to seize anything and must rely on a contractual duty to cooperate.

The standard of proof, and why it sits where it does

The ICC carries the burden of proving that an offence has been committed. The standard is comfortable satisfaction, judged with regard to the seriousness of the allegation, and the Code states expressly that this is greater than a mere balance of probability and less than proof beyond reasonable doubt.

That middle position is a deliberate compromise between two failures.

Set the standard at the criminal level and the system would almost never convict, because the evidence in a corruption case is overwhelmingly circumstantial. There is rarely a confession, rarely a recording, and never a physical trace of the offence itself. A sport that required proof beyond reasonable doubt would be announcing that it could not act.

Set it at the ordinary civil level and a career could be ended on a finding that something was marginally more likely than not. The consequences of a corruption finding in cricket are permanent in a way that a commercial judgment is not.

Comfortable satisfaction, sliding with the seriousness of what is alleged, means the tribunal demands more persuasion for a charge of fixing a match than for a charge of failing to report a conversation. That is the same graduated approach courts apply to serious allegations in civil proceedings, and it is the reason the tribunal's reasons matter as much as its conclusion.

Provisional suspension: what it is and what it is not

The Code permits a provisional suspension while an investigation or a proceeding is under way. The decision is taken by the designated anti-corruption official, and its effect is that the individual stops playing immediately, before any finding has been made.

Two things are worth being precise about, because this is where public understanding most often goes wrong.

A provisional suspension is not a verdict. It is a holding measure taken because allowing the individual to continue playing while a serious allegation is investigated would put matches and the investigation itself at risk. The individual has not been found to have done anything.

And the time is not lost if the charge is upheld. Any period served under a provisional suspension is credited against the total period of ineligibility eventually imposed, so a player suspended for eight months who then receives a five-year ban serves the remainder rather than starting again.

The practical difficulty is that a provisional suspension can be reported as though it were a finding, and the reputational effect arrives immediately whatever the outcome. That is a genuine cost of the mechanism, and the argument for it is that the alternative, leaving a player in the side while the unit investigates whether that player has been fixing, is worse for everybody including the player.

Sanction ranges, and what moves a penalty within them

Each article carries a range rather than a fixed penalty, and the tribunal sets the period of ineligibility inside it.

A corruption offence under the first family carries a minimum of five years and a maximum of a lifetime ban. Failing to disclose an approach carries a minimum of six months and a maximum of five years. Betting and inside-information offences sit between those, closer to the lower band.

Within a range, the factors that move a sanction are the ones you would expect from any disciplinary system. Admitting the charge early, cooperating fully with the investigation and providing substantial assistance that helps the unit reach other people all pull downwards, and the last of these can pull a long way, because a system with no investigative powers values cooperation very highly. Recruiting others, repeating the conduct, obstructing the investigation, and holding a position of seniority or responsibility all pull upwards.

Ineligibility is broader than a playing ban. It excludes the individual from all cricket-related activity under the authority of the ICC and its members: coaching, team roles, administration, and in most cases accreditation to be in the areas covered by the officials' code. The point is to remove access, not merely to stop somebody batting.

Corruption offence5yrs

Failing to report an approach0.5yrs

The floor of the range, in years, as stated in the Code. The maximum for a corruption offence is a lifetime ban and the maximum for failing to report an approach is five years, so the gap between these two bars understates the difference at the top of each range.

Show the numbers

Minimum period of ineligibility, by offence family

Item	Minimum ineligibility
Corruption offence	5yrs
Failing to report an approach	0.5yrs

The Player and Match Officials Areas Code

Alongside the Anti-Corruption Code sits a second, shorter instrument that does the physical work: the Player and Match Officials Areas Code, universally shortened to PMOA.

It defines a restricted zone at international matches, covering the dressing rooms used by teams and by match officials, the match viewing areas and dug-outs teams use, the operational rooms used by umpires and the match referee, and the dining areas used by teams and officials. Entry requires specific accreditation, worn and visible.

Inside that zone, communication devices are prohibited. A player may not possess or use a mobile phone or an internet-connected device while in the area, which is why the phones go into a box. Leaving the area during play requires express permission from the anti-corruption manager or the team manager, so that movements in and out are known rather than assumed.

Breaches are dealt with by financial penalty rather than by the ineligibility periods the Anti-Corruption Code carries, because a phone in a dressing room is a control failure rather than a corruption offence. The two codes work as layers: PMOA removes the opportunity, and the Anti-Corruption Code deals with what happens if somebody takes one anyway. The officials covered by both are also subject to their own performance and conduct regimes, described in the piece on the ICC's elite panel of umpires.

Education, and what a briefing actually covers

Every international squad receives anti-corruption education, delivered by ACU staff or by the equivalent unit at a member board, and the content is more practical than the phrase suggests.

A briefing covers what an approach actually looks like, which is the part players consistently report as the most useful. Approaches rarely arrive as a proposition. They arrive as a new acquaintance at a hotel, an unusually generous host, a request for a small and apparently harmless piece of information, a gift, an introduction from someone the player already trusts. The sequence is designed so that by the time a request arrives that the player would refuse outright, the player is already several obligations deep.

It covers the reporting duty in concrete terms: who to tell, how to reach them, and the fact that reporting is required rather than optional. It covers the rules on betting and on inside information, including the ones players find counter-intuitive, such as the prohibition applying to matches the player has nothing to do with. And it covers what happens after a report, because a player who believes reporting will end their season is a player who will not report.

The education also extends outward, to franchise owners, league organisers and support staff, and the ICC provides materials for members to run domestic briefings. That outward extension is the bridge to the part of the game where the exposure actually sits.

Why franchise leagues are the exposure point

Cricket's corruption risk has migrated. International cricket is now the most heavily protected part of the sport and the hardest to interfere with. The growth of professional Twenty20 competitions around the world has created a much larger volume of matches with a very different risk profile, and that is where the pressure has moved.

The reasons are structural rather than cultural, and there are four of them.

Jurisdiction is fragmented. Responsibility for a domestic match, including a franchise league match, sits in the first instance with the national board under whose authority it is played. Where that board has a well-resourced unit, the protection is strong. Where it does not, the protection depends on whatever the league itself has arranged, and leagues vary enormously in what they arrange.

The playing population is transient and lightly contracted. A franchise squad assembles for a few weeks, contains players from several countries on short deals, and disperses. Some of those players are on modest fees with no central contract behind them and no long career to protect, which is a materially different incentive structure from that of a centrally contracted international. The economics of who gets paid what in these competitions is covered in the guide to how the IPL auction works, and the same market operates with far less money further down.

The match volume is enormous and the betting market is not proportionate to prestige. A large number of matches are played each year in competitions with limited profile and substantial betting turnover. Volume dilutes scrutiny, and a low-profile match attracts less attention from broadcasters, journalists and officials while still attracting a market.

The environment is less controlled. International cricket runs the PMOA regime, dedicated anti-corruption managers at the ground and hotel security arrangements. A newer or smaller competition may have none of that, which means the physical separation between players and the people who want access to them is thinner.

The response has been to push the international model outward: encouraging leagues to appoint anti-corruption officials, applying the device restrictions in team areas, requiring education for every squad, and moving intelligence through the ICC hub so that an individual excluded from one competition does not simply appear in the next one. The scale of the task tracks the growth described in the spread of franchise Twenty20 competitions, and it is growing faster than the resourcing behind it in most jurisdictions. Newer markets building competitions from scratch, such as those covered in the rise of top-level cricket in the United States, face the question of what integrity capability to build before they have a problem to solve.

What to watch for, and how to judge a competition's integrity setup

For anyone following the game rather than administering it, a few observable things indicate whether a competition is serious about this.

Look for a named anti-corruption official attached to the competition and present at matches. A league that has one has accepted that the risk applies to it. A league that has outsourced the question to a general statement about integrity has not.

Look at whether the dressing room controls exist. Devices out of team areas, accreditation enforced, movement in and out logged: these are cheap, visible and effective, and their absence in a professional competition is a decision rather than an oversight.

Look at how a provisional suspension is reported when one happens. A competition and a governing body that describe it accurately, as a holding measure pending a decision, are running a process. Coverage that treats it as a verdict is a sign that the explanation has not been done.

And treat the absence of cases with caution rather than comfort. A competition with no charges may be clean, or may have nobody looking. The units that bring cases are the ones with education programmes, reporting channels that players trust, and intelligence arriving from somewhere. The system depends on a player deciding, in a hotel lobby, that a conversation is worth reporting, and everything else the ACU does is an attempt to make that decision easier to take.

The rules governing what happens on the field, as opposed to the conduct rules that sit above them, are collected in the Laws every follower of the game should know. More on how the sport is governed, funded and officiated sits in the cricket section, and the equivalent explainers for other sports are in the full archive.