Mr Bjørn Berge serves as the Council of Europe’s Deputy Secretary General since 1 March 2021.

As the Deputy Secretary General he is involved in a number of key areas of the work of the Organisation, including advising and overseeing the implementation of the Secretary General’s reform agenda, in line with the decisions and priorities of the Committee of Ministers.

His priorities include shaping the Programme and Budget, while ensuring that the Organisation’s activities have maximum impact in advancing democracy, human rights and the rule of law. He also oversees the Council of Europe’s staff policy, as well as other key areas of the work of the Organisation.

Before taking up his post, Mr Berge was for a period of four years Director General and Secretary to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

Between 2009-2017, he served as Director of the Private Office of the Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General, helping to prepare, co-ordinate and implement a number of comprehensive reforms of the Organisation.

Mr Berge has over thirty years of international professional experience.

As a former Norwegian diplomat, he served as International Adviser to the Prime Minister and as Deputy Director of the Foreign Minister’s Cabinet responsible for all matters related to Parliament. He also served as speechwriter to three Norwegian Foreign Ministers.

Mr Berge has published several books on a range of issues relating to speech writing and speeches, as well as articles on the Council of Europe’s mandate and work.

He was a Fulbright Scholar and holds a M.A. in International Relations from the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C., USA.

Amélie Oudéa-Castéra is a former tennis champion. She was French champion three times (1990, 1992 and 1994), won the Orange Bowl (the unofficial junior world championships) in the under-14 category in 1992 and reached the semi-finals of three of the four junior grand slams. She was selected some fifty times for French youth teams and reached 251st in the world ranking in 1994. 

In 1996, having appeared at the French Open for the last time, playing doubles alongside Amélie Mauresmo, she decided to give up tennis for her studies, which led her to Sciences Po, the ESSEC Business School, law at the Sorbonne and finally, the national administration college, ENA.

After ENA, she began work at the French Court of Auditors, where she was responsible for five years for auditing the Ministry of Finance and was appointed rapporteur on the situation and prospects of public funding for Parliament.

In 2008, she was recruited by the AXA Insurance Group, where she began in the finance directorate before becoming a strategy manager. In 2011, she joined the French branch of the group as a marketing, digital and partnerships director and in 2014 she became a member of its Executive Committee in France. In 2016, she became world director of marketing, client services and digital processes.

In November 2018, Amélie was appointed to the Executive Committee of Carrefour as director of e-commerce, data and digital transformation for the entire group.

In March 2021, she became the Director General of the French Tennis Federation, managing a 470-strong team alongside the President Gilles Moretton and, in particular, co-ordinating the organisation of the prestigious French Open at Roland-Garros. 

In 2018 she was one of the co-founders of the association Rénovons le Sport Français (Renovate French Sport), which she then ran for four years, and for some months, she was Chair of the Audit Committee for the 2024 Paris Olympics and a member of the governing board of the association Sport in the City, which specialises in social insertion through sport. She was the sports advisor for Emmanuel Macron’s campaign for the 2022 presidential election.

Amélie was also an administrator for Plastic Omnium Group for eight years and for Eurazeo Group for four years.

She is the mother of three boys, aged 16, 14 and 11.

Born on 2 February 1960 in Quimper, Marie-Suzanne Le Quéau has held a number of positions in both the judiciary and the prosecution service. 

From 1992 to 1996, she was public prosecutor in Bernay, a post she subsequently held in Auxerre (2000-2004), Evreux (2007-2010) and Evry (2010-2012).

In 2012, Ms Le Quéau was appointed director of criminal affairs and pardons at the Ministry of Justice.

In 2014, she returned to the prosecution service as principal public prosecutor at the Douai Court of Appeal, before becoming principal public prosecutor at the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal in 2020.

Stephan is Senior Counsel at World Rugby, the International Governing Body for the sport of Rugby Union. Stephan’s responsibilities include leading the organisations integrity and safeguarding strategies, as well as advising on player welfare, governance and a variety of regulatory issues. Stephan joined World Rugby having acquired over 10 years’ experience in football, where his practice encompassed integrity, on and off-field disciplinary, safeguarding, anti-doping, arbitration contentious legal matters. Stephan previously held the positions of Integrity Investigation Manager and Legal Counsel at the English Football Association gaining experience leading high profile investigations and intelligence handling. Stephan currently holds the positions of Pro Bono Legal Counsel for UEFA and acts as an Independent Integrity Expert for FIFA. Stephan also sits as Chair of England Boxing’s National Disciplinary and Safeguarding panels.

The speaker has not yet provided their biography. 

Name: Catarina Susana Oliveira e Sousa Esteves de Azevedo
Date and Place of Birth: 10/25/1978, in the city of Viseu, Portugal.
1996 to 2001 – Degree in Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra.
2001 to 2003 – Internship/training at the Portuguese Bar Association;
2004 to 2009 – Practice of Advocacy.
2005 – Post-Graduate Course in Business Law taught by IDET (Institute of Business and Labor Law), at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra.
2010 – Admission to the Center for Judicial Studies, for training as a Public Ministry Magistrate.
2011 – Appointed Attorney General of the Republic, by the Attorney General of the Portuguese Republic.
2011 to 2017 – Exercise of the functions of Public Prosecutor in several departments, namely in the area of civil law, in the area of family and children's law and essentially in the area of criminal law.
2015 – Master's Course in Legal and Forensic Sciences by the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra.
2018 and 2019 - Exercising of the functions of Public Prosecutor in the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action of Coimbra, in the area of investigation of serious and/or complex crimes.
2020 to 2022- Exercising the functions of Public Prosecutor in the Department of Investigation and Penal Action of Aveiro, in the area of investigation of violent crime, highly organized and economic-financial crime;
Since September 2022 - Exercising the functions of the Public Prosecutor in the Porto Regional Penal Investigation Department, in the area of investigation of violent crime, highly organized and economic and financial crime, of the entire northern region of the country.

Gunter Younger has served as the Director of Intelligence and Investigations Department at the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2016. He is a senior Police officer at the Bavarian Landeskriminalamt (Germany) with more than 30 years’ experience in international investigations of Organised Crime, Drug trafficking, Cybercrime, Counterfeit Currencies and other serious crime areas. He also served at Europol and was the head of drugs at INTERPOL in 2008. In 2015 he was a member of WADA’s three-person Independent Commission which investigated and exposed widespread doping in Russian athletics and corruption within the IAAF (now World Athletics).

Adrian began his law enforcement career in 2002 and he holds an experience of more than 17 years as international police cooperation officer and later on as deputy head of the National Football Information Point of Romania.

He was involved in the work of the European Group of Policing Football and NFIP Experts (Think Tank) – NFIP network for more than 10 years, in 2015 being elected as vice-chair of this body and as of November 2021 as Chair. In this function, he is responsible for the strategic management of the European NFIP network and contributed to the development of the current European legal framework in this field, analysis instruments for police data, monitoring and technical assistance activities, NFIP website and various training programs.

Mr.Dinca also held the position of Vice-chair of the Council of Europe Convention on Spectator Violence (T-RV) Standing Committee from 2016 to 2018 and Chair from 2018 to 2020, being elected for these positions by delegates from the Member States parties to this international Treaty.

From April 2021, Adrian has been elected as the first Chair of the new established Committee on Safety and Security at Sports Events for the Council of Europe Convention on an Integrated Safety, Security and Service Approach at Football Matches and Other Sports Events (T-S4) for a mandate of 2 years, which was renewed in April 2023 for an extra 2 years. 

Adrian has been a part of the operational support teams deployed for several major sport events (notably EURO 2008, Europa League final 2012 and EURO 2016) and he was a member of the management structure of the International Police Cooperation Centre (IPCC) for the EURO 2020, which was hosted at Europol headquarters in Hague. 

He is involved as expert in various international training sessions related to safety and security at sport events, organized by UEFA, European Think Tank, Council of Europe and CEPOL.

Senior French police official in charge of the international section of the Division Nationale de Lutte contre le Hooliganisme (DGPN - DNSP) since 2019, and in this capacity liaison officer for the National Football Information Point (NFIP) France.

Chairperson of the Advisory Group on Monitoring for the T-S4 Convention Committee since April 2021 (2nd and final current term). The Chairperson oversees all the work of this group, which ensures that the States Parties to the T-S4 Convention implement it properly (annual questionnaire/annual evaluation report/monitoring visits). 

Douglas has 31 years’ experience of working in the criminal justice system and is the Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service’s West Midlands area. West Midlands is the largest of 14 CPS areas in England and Wales and has 500 staff, half of which are lawyers.

Douglas leads for his area on hate crime and is responsible for rape and serious sexual offences, complex casework, and gang related prosecutions.

Douglas is the national lead prosecutor for criminality in sport and regularly engages with the national media, the UK Football Policing Unit, the Premier League, the Football Association, and other leading sporting organisations.

Ronan Evain is a French football supporter activist, geographer and election expert. He joined Football Supporters Europe (FSE) in January 2015 as coordinator of the UEFA programme Respect Fan Culture, in the framework of the EURO 2016, before being appointed as Executive Director in November 2016.  Before joining FSE, Ronan has been a volunteer supporter activist for over 10 years, at local and national level.

Ronan currently represents FSE in an observatory capacity at the Council of Europe Standing Committee of the Convention on an Integrated Safety, Security and Service Approach at Football Matches and Other Sports Events (T-S4) and serves as an expert for the Council of Europe’s monitoring and evaluation visits.

He currently coordinates a team of 9 people, based in 6 European countries.

Martin is the Chair of the ARF Council, a think tank established by the Asian Racing Federation (a regional federation comprising 28 national racing authorities and racing-related organisations from across Asia, Oceania, Africa and the Middle East). The ARF Council was established in 2017 and now comprises 24 members who are thought leaders from organisations engaged in horse racing and sports integrity, law enforcement, the UNODC, and academia.

From 2009 to 2020 Martin was Director of Security & Integrity for the Hong Kong Jockey Club.  He reported directly to the CEO and he was responsible for a department of 240 people conducting investigations into organised crime and corruption threatening the Jockey Club, horse racing integrity, anti-bribery and corruption prevention, Anti-Money Laundering and financial crime risk management, illegal betting threat research, customer due diligence, physical security, and emergency planning.

From 2004 to 2009, Martin was the Director of Security & Travel Safety for McKinsey & Company, where he established and led the global security function, reporting to the Office of the General Counsel in New York. 

Prior to McKinsey, Martin spent three years with the Hong Kong Jockey Club as Executive Manager responsible for creating a due diligence and intelligence team. This followed his stint as Asia Investigations Manager with Intel Corporation working against illegally sold computer processors and combatting theft of Intel products in the Asia region.

Before his private sector roles, Martin joined the Royal Hong Kong Police Force in 1988 and spent eleven years as a Detective Senior Inspector in Special Branch, the Criminal Intelligence Bureau, and Commercial Crime, Bureau dealing mainly with intelligence led investigations in collaboration with overseas agencies.

Federal magistrate working at the Federal prosecutor’s Office from Belgium, working in the team of organised crime. Since 2009 my main focus is on trafficking in human beings, migrant smuggling and CSAM (child sexual abuse material).

Organised crime is an offence affecting the society and so is fraud in Sport in general as well. Beloved Eric Bisschop asked me to look into the case of Maestro not sure of its outcome at that moment. For me it was the first encounter with match fixing. It became soon clear that we had to deal with organised crime affecting the market place. Furthermore, this was not a local crime, but a transnational crime needing the cooperation of other countries. 

Each investigation shows possible vulnerabilities of our legal system, prosecution and police capacity and with proper evaluation changes can be made.  As organised crime works beyond borders the international cooperation is essential. 

Journalist, editor and sports commentator at national tv-station TV 2 – the biggest sports broadcaster in Denmark. Has covered international handball for 15 years for TV 2 and also works especially with stories about what happens off the pitch in the world of sports. Was recently a part of the team behind the tv-documentary ‘Suspicious Betting’ about potential matchfixing in European handball.

Christian Engell (born 1974) is a Danish journalist specialized in critical and investigative journalism. Studied journalism after two years of law studies at University of Copenhagen. Since 2002, he has worked with journalism for national newspapers, radio and television / documentaries. Is particularly experienced in disclosures/investigations of fraud, abuse, money laundering and other criminal activities. Practices an unorthodox and dedicated approach to stories and trustful relations to sources. These skills helped him uncover the methods of a pedophile preacher, how fashion industry giants such as H&M and Bestseller dispose huge quantities of unsold products and most recently; referee related match fixing in international handball.

After starting out as a lawyer, Frédéric Van Leeuw joined the Brussels prosecutor's office in 2000, where he moved straight to the family and youth section. In 2002, he was appointed deputy public prosecutor for Brussels, with special responsibility for combating urban gangs and serious juvenile crime. As such, he had to deal with several high-profile cases, including the murder of Jo Van Holsbeek in Brussels central station by two other youngsters. 

In 2006, he was assigned to the criminal section of the Brussels prosecutor’s office, where he dealt with inner city cases, before joining the federal prosecution service in November 2007. In the federal prosecution service, he was involved in the fight against organised crime, with a particular focus on cybercrime. He took part in several expert missions for the Council of Europe and the United Nations in this area. He set up cybercrime training courses for Belgian judges as an expert for the Belgian Judicial Training Institute and is now a member of its governing board. On 2 April 2014, he took over as head of the federal prosecution service, after being appointed federal prosecutor, and so became a member of Belgium’s National Security Council and the Board of Prosecutors General. 

In January 2017, French President François Hollande made Mr Van Leeuw a Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honour in recognition of the role played by his office in Franco-Belgian judicial co-operation against terrorism.

In June 2018, the Council of Ministers appointed Frédéric VAN LEEUW as Chair of the Intelligence and Security Co-ordination Committee, a post which he combines with his duties as federal prosecutor. The Co-ordination Committee brings together the heads of the various agencies in charge of security and intelligence in Belgium and plays a major role in preparing and implementing the decisions of the National Security Council. 

By Royal Decree of 11 March 2019, Mr VAN LEEUW was reappointed as federal prosecutor for a further five years from 2 April 2019.

I have been a French judicial magistrate for 27 years and have spent most of my career in the Public Prosecutor's Office. After having held several positions within the jurisdictions of the South of France, I specialised in major complex crime, first as Head of the Organised Crime Section in Marseille and then as Deputy Public Prosecutor for the National Financial Prosecutor's Office. Since 2019, I have been Deputy Public Prosecutor in Marseille, Head of the Specialised Policing Division and in particular of Major Economic and Financial Crime.

Alexandre Husting: Chair of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS), Attaché for Education, Youth, Culture and Sport at the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union and International and European Affairs Advisor at the Ministry of Sport of Luxembourg.

Criminal defence lawyer since 1984.

Practised in Lille for 30 years.

Joined the Paris bar association in 2016. Founded the law firm Dupond-Moretti et Vey.

Minister of Justice (since July 2020).