This Tuesday (26), a total of 109 senior officials from law enforcement, judicial authorities and national football associations from 49 countries attended the joint Europol-UEFA conference at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Over the course of the day, expert panels analysed the most pressing current and future threats to protecting the integrity of football and fighting organised crime groups. They discussed topics such as operational collaboration between law enforcement bodies and football Integrity officers, and the early detection of suspicious betting patterns.
Among them was Tom Mace, Sportradar’s Director Global Operations for Integrity Services, who spoke about the scale of match-fixing in the last 18 months and the work of the company to protect the integrity of sport.
“We joined more than 100 officials from law enforcement, judicial authorities and national football associations to discuss the most pressing current and future threats to the integrity of football and the latest on fighting organised crime groups,” states Sportradar.
Prevention was also high on the agenda, with discussions focusing on new recently adopted legal frameworks and existing tools designed to prevent match-fixing and facilitate information sharing.
Burkhard Mühl, Head of Europol’s European Financial and Economic Crime Centre (EFECC), commented: “Organised crime quickly understood that a lot of football clubs were suffering financially as a consequence of COVID-19. And where there is less money, players, coaches, officials and even club executives are increasingly vulnerable to being corrupted by fixers. What with the huge profits associated with ‘making the unpredictable predictable’, we are seeing more and more cases of match-fixing and suspicious results. Cooperation between law enforcement and sports organisations is vital to not only detect and investigate suspected corruption in football, but also to stop such fraudulent activities before they can even begin.”
Meanwhile UEFA’s Managing Director of Integrity and Regulatory, Angelo Rigopoulos, remarked: “This first joint Europol-UEFA international conference is an important step forward in the fight against match-fixing, and sends out a strong signal that both organisations are here to pool their forces and do their utmost to minimise this phenomenon.”
Vincent Ven, UEFA’s Head of Anti-Match-Fixing, added: “Nowadays, more than ever before, European football and the law enforcement sector need to remain united and offer their mutual support in seeking to protect our popular sport from this scourge, by cooperating in joint activities, implementing common projects and exchanging information in the area of match-fixing.”
Experts at Europol’s European Financial and Economic Crime Centre work with law enforcement authorities across the European Union to identify links between suspicious matches and suspects, and to uncover the organised crime groups who orchestrate these multi-million Euro frauds against sport.
UEFA’s team of anti-match-fixing experts work on education, intelligence, investigation and cooperation with its network of 55 Integrity Officers as well as key stakeholders and partners, with particular emphasis given to preventing any issues related to match-fixing and betting irregularities.
Source: GMB
