How Qatar used an anti-corruption organisation to spy on its rivals

By , Mathieu Martiniere and Robert Schmidt (We Report)

In just a few years the International Centre for Sport Security, an NGO based in Doha, has made a name for itself in the global fight against corruption in sport. But Football Leaks reveals a hidden side to this organisation which is funded by the Qatari state and which works with the United Nations, the Council of Europe and Sorbonne University in Paris. In April 2015 former police officers working for the ICSS went to Lausanne to tail one of the key figures in world sport, the Kuwaiti sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah. Mediapart's Antton Rouget and Mathieu Martinière and Robert Schmidt from independent journalistic collective We Report investigate.

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It was a scene worthy of a spy novel. The setting was Lausanne, capital of the Swiss canton of Vaud and capital of world sport where no fewer than 55 international sporting federations, from the Court of Arbitration for Sport to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), have their headquarters.

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