More bad publicity for Irish Greyhound Racing, Clearly the boys in suits do not have the necessary skills to run our Industry. All we have is failures from other sectors who are collecting large salaries without delivering the goods and it has to STOP now IMO if we are going to survive. Greyhound racing has a doping problem, says broadcaster March 3, 2019 at 2:08 pm It is old news but the IGOBF have repeatedly warned that the standard of integrity in the Irish greyhound industry is not acceptable to todays punters. SIS has now officially pointed out this lack of integrity to the IGB. This lack of integrity devalues our product and has a direct impact on greyhound owners as it reduces the amount of money available for prize money. The CEO of The IGB is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product being produced, this criticism of the industry by SIS will add to the chorus of voices that question the ability of the CEO to right the industry. This article was printed in The Times last Thursday Feb 28. There were some readers comments posted at the end. Aaron Rogan, February 28 2019, 12: The company that broadcasts Irish greyhound racing to betting shops around the world has told the sports governing body that it has a serious integrity problem because of doping and irregular betting patterns. Sports Information Services (SIS) raised its concerns at a meeting with the Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) in October at which a representative of the company gave a damning assessment of the sport in Ireland. The main issues with Irish greyhound racing are high-profile integrity issues such as positive tests and betting incidents, which serve to undermine turnover at Irish tracks, an SIS representative said. The key challenge in selling Irish greyhound racing is a consumer lack of confidence. SIS buys licensing rights to sports and sells them to the betting industry. The criticisms of Irish dog racing, which receives state funding, were made at a meeting to discuss the establishment of early morning meetings at tracks in Kilkenny and Waterford. The races, the first of which is at 8.18am, began as a trial in December, and they are broadcast to bookmakers globally. Redacted minutes of the meeting released to The Times showed that Frank Nyhan, chairman of the IGB, said that the board was barely breaking even from its deal with SIS and would not be able to provide more races unless the terms improved. An SIS representative, whose name was redacted, said that the sport was struggling because gamblers and journalists did not trust it. The SIS employee raised the issues of doping, irregular betting and the availability of private trials at which owners were given access to racetracks to run dogs without the result being made public or put on the race card. This allowed owners and trainers to enter dogs into races without their recent form being available to bookmakers or punters. This is not the case in England, where all official trials on racetracks are recorded on the race card when the dog is entered into a race. There is concern in the bookmaking industry that such private trials allow for big bets to be organised with insider knowledge and has made most major bookmakers stop taking large bets on Irish races. The minutes of Octobers meeting show that the SIS employee was responding to Mr Nyhans complaint about the terms of the SIS deal. The employee emphasised the elements of integrity embedded in the product, namely the ongoing issue with private trials, positive tests and betting incidents, which affect journalists perception of Irish greyhound racing and therefore consumer confidence and behaviour which will take time to resolve. SIS said that the lack of confidence in Irish racing made it less attractive in the UK and unless that confidence was improved the number of Irish races broadcast would not increase. The IGB is a semi-state body and has received more than 100 million from the tax payer in the past decade at a time when it has faced criticism over its corporate governance, doping controls and animal welfare sanctions. It will receive 16.8 million this year after the government agreed to an 800,000 increase. The average attendence at races in 2014 was 371 and the sport has struggled to attract people to stadiums in recent years, which has led to declining finances at the IGB. It has appointed consultants to examine the financial sustainability of its 16 stadiums and a report is due later this year. A controversy erupted last year when The Times reported that the 23 million paid by the Department of Education for a former track at Harolds Cross, Dublin, was more than twice the value of between 6 and 12 million given by consultants acting for the IGB. At the time IGB, otherwise known as Bord na gCon, had debts of more than 21 million and the money provided by the department exceeded this amount. There have also been concerns about the failure of the IGB to inform the Department of Agriculture immediately after it became aware that a prized greyhound had tested positive for cocaine in 2017. The departments investigations unit was not informed until days after the test, which reduced the ability of investigators to conduct an unannounced search. A spokesman for the IGB told The Times that it spent approximately 2 million on regulation and welfare last year. He said that the Greyhound Industry Bill, which is at committee stage in the Dil, would improve the regulation of the sport. This legislative framework, when passed, will allow the IGB to maintain the regulatory initiatives already in place, as mentioned, as well as implementing further progressive measures to allay any public concerns that may exist on industry regulation. A spokesman for SIS said: We are confident that all the tracks on the SIS greyhound service comply with our strict integrity standards to provide a robust and fair betting product. The IGB say they spent 2 million on Regulation & Welfare, where exactly has this money been spent??? is it on suppling Taxis from Galway to Dublin for those in the retired Greyhound trust to eat a free feed in the Shelbourne restaurant??? Or to travel around the Globe in style, stay in plush hotels abroad & in Cork??? it certainly has not gone into Regulation. Our Regulation Department is not & has never been fit for purpose and it needs a radical overhauling to say the least IMHO, a pure disgrace nothing else.
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