August 11 – Thailand’s Premier League has brought in betting fraud monitoring service Sportrader to track betting patterns and monitor any suspicious activity for the 2014 season.
Sportradar already works with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Football Federation Australia (FFA). For the Toyota Thai Premier League Sportradar will scrutinise 380 games including matches completed earlier this year.
Sportradar will split the monitoring between its Hong Kong and London offices and will be conducted in the same way that it would track any of its European clients across more than 400 bookmakers using its Fraud Detection System (FDS). The company will however focus on the Asian Totals and Asian Handicap markets and will red flag and analyse in deeper detail fluctuations in those markets.
There has been a growing concern around potential match-fixing in Thailand, but the attention to date has been around the integrity of referees rather than players and teams. One referee had been linked to another betting syndicate, while another referee was shot (but is now refereeing again) in an incident that is believed to have been betting syndicate-related.
The Football Association of Thaliand (FAT) had previously taken 100 referees to swear an oath to the Emerald Buddha of Bangkok to referee more honestly. One referee who was suspended but swore the oath was subsequently allowed to return to refereeing. While perhaps humoured as a method in the west (but not without effect in the East), the Sportradar approach will bring a level of empirical analysis in the battle against match fixing.
Sportradar’s Managing Director Strategy and Integrity Andreas Krannich said: “Thailand has been recognised by the AFC as a Tier One League, commercially and professionally speaking. It is encouraging that with this maturity comes a recognition of the importance of integrity. The Toyota Thai Premier League is taking the front foot to ensure that its competition can be trusted and enjoyed by fans. “
The integrity of the Thai Premier League as it seeks to build its commercial and competitive base was emphasised by its president Ong-Arj Kosinkar: “We will not compromise on this. As we grow the popularity of this competition, it is important that we remain vigilant to dangers.”
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