Speaking at a media briefing here today at the SportAccord Summit, representatives from ICSS claim International Federations have embraced the idea of the hotline.

"A lot of the federations do not have the resources to be able to establish their own hotlines and conduct investigations," ICSS chief executive Michael Hershman, who worked on Interpol’s anti-corruption taskforce for 13 years, said.

"They can blow their budgets pretty quickly on one or two investigations, particularly if they get complicated.

"So, we have been talking to them about somehow being able to piggyback them onto our hotline.

"Perhaps create a separate phone number for each of the Federations that want to participate and help them design a programme that will allow them to assign priorities to the investigations depending on the nature and seriousness of the investigation."

Since its launch in December, the ICSS say they have mainly received calls from people concerned about match-fixing and doping in football, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Calls have tended to come from either individual athletes or somebody with a relationship to an athlete or a team.

"It is years too late, but let me clear about it," Hershman said.

"There are existing hotlines that FIFA has now put in place - years too late.

"The International Olympic Committee has put in place - years too late.

"Larger Federations do have hotlines now, but we felt that we wanted one which was independent of any of the existing sports bodies."

Hershman also claimed cases of scandals in sport has increased in recent years, creating the need for an independent hotline.

"The number of scandals has increased dramatically in recent years whether its sexual assault, match-fixing or doping," he said.

"When you look at the case of FIFA, FIFA only began getting rich in the last 15 years and it’s only when you have big money when you start getting criminal elements involved.

"When the stakes are larger."

As well as catering for athletes and teams, ICSS are heavily involved in public security for major events.

With developing technologies and new methods of attack, they realise they always need to be one step ahead.

"You really have to be ahead of the curve," Hershman said.

"Who thought five years ago we would be dealing with death by truck or van in pedestrian areas?

"Growing technologies introduce another level of threat."

One of the new threats is that of the "lone wolf" - as opposed to an organised group of attackers - something ICSS admit is hard to prevent.

"It’s almost impossible to guarantee 100 per cent security, particularly with the lone wolf," Hershman said.

"If you are dealing with an organised group, there’s a better chance you can pick something up through intelligence operations, but the guy that shot all those people in Vegas [a lone gunman killed 58 people at a concert in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017]?

"We could not have found out about that in advance."