Frequently asked questions.

Athena Integrity is an independent sports integrity company. We provide expert investigative capability to sports organisations that need to assess concerns, handle cases and manage integrity risks to a proper professional standard.

We operate as a Virtual Integrity Unit — an external function that works alongside or on behalf of a client’s own integrity capability.

Athena was co-founded by Affy Sheikh and Nick Raudenski, two longstanding sports integrity practitioners, after several years of conversations about what needs to be done. Darren Bailey of Sport360 Consulting is Athena’s strategic advisor.

The founding team is supported by a wider network of advisors and expert specialist practitioners with experience across integrity investigations, intelligence, legal practice and sports governance.

Athena is for sports governing bodies, leagues, competition organisers and other organisations that carry responsibility for protecting integrity in their sport.

We work with organisations facing case volume or complexity that exceeds their internal capacity, or where independence from the investigating body is important.

We work across the full range of sports integrity matter types, including doping and anti-doping matters, betting and match manipulation concerns, safeguarding allegations, governance failures, participant misconduct and broader integrity risk assessments.

If you are unsure whether a matter falls within our scope, contact us. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right resource.

A Virtual Integrity Unit (VIU) functions like an in-house integrity unit — without the fixed overhead of building and maintaining one permanently.

The Athena VIU is available when needed, scalable to the demands of each matter and governed to the standard that legal and regulatory scrutiny requires.

Both. Athena can advise a client’s own team on investigative strategy and approach, providing specialist support at any stage of an ongoing matter, or take on the investigation directly when required.

The appropriate level of involvement depends on the nature of the case, the client’s existing capability and what will produce the most defensible outcome.

Yes. The VIU model is specifically designed for this. Integrity cases do not arrive on a predictable schedule — and the right early response to a concern is vital.

Athena operates as a standing capability rather than a project-based engagement, meaning we can mobilise quickly without the delays that come with instructing from scratch.

Many sports struggle to cope with everything in-house. When case volumes and complexity levels increase, the gap between the resource and skills needed and what is available often becomes significant.

Athena gives clients access to experienced, independent investigative capability without the cost of building it permanently. More importantly, it provides the structural independence that many cases require: an external party with no conflicts and no stake in the outcome.

All client information is treated as strictly confidential. Athena does not share case details with any third party without the client’s explicit instruction and operates with the same duty of discretion expected of any professional service.

We recognise that many integrity matters carry legal, reputational or safeguarding sensitivity. Our processes are designed with that in mind from the outset.

First, independence. Athena does not operate in adjacent commercial spaces — we have no involvement in betting, data rights or commercial partnerships with the sports we serve. There are no conflicts of interest, structural or commercial.

Second, we are operational rather than advisory. We handle real cases, not just policies. Our capability is built around investigative method, triage discipline and the standard required for legal and regulatory defensibility.

Third, AI-augmented investigation. Athena is built on aiTHENA, a proprietary AI investigative capability developed specifically for sports integrity work. This is not a general-purpose tool applied to integrity problems — it is purpose-built for how integrity cases actually need to be assessed.

No. Sports integrity services have traditionally been delivered by in-house teams or general investigations firms on a case-by-case basis. Neither model is designed for the volume, complexity or speed that modern sports integrity requires. Athena is built specifically to fill that gap — combining standing investigative capability, purpose-built AI and structural independence in a single, accessible model.

aiTHENA is Athena’s proprietary AI investigative capability. It is being built for internal use by the Athena team to analyse information, structure assessments and support investigative thinking across cases, while improving the speed, consistency and quality of our work.

General AI tools are built for broad use across any topic or domain. They have no specific knowledge of sports integrity, investigative methodology or the legal and regulatory frameworks that integrity decisions operate within. Nor are they secure.

aiTHENA is built specifically for sports integrity investigation. It is secure and shaped by domain expertise, real case experience and the structured thinking that proper integrity work requires. The result is an AI capability that works the way a specialist investigator works — not the way a general-purpose language model works.

No. aiTHENA supports human judgment — it does not replace it. Every engagement is directed by experienced practitioners. aiTHENA operates under human oversight at every stage.