By Paul Nicholson
June 24 – The Greeks have made an attempt to plaster over the match-fixing crisis that has rocked the game in the country and forced a stand-off between government politicians and football’s governing officials. The Hellenic Football Federation (HFF) has signed up with betting monitoring specialists Sportradar for a series of 120 match-fixing prevention workshops over three years.
While the workshops will undoubtedly be invaluable in the education of players, officials and club and federation employees on the dangers of match-fixing, the problem in Greece goes much higher within the professional game and the question needs to asked whether the workshops will be directed at and attended by the right people.
Athens criminal prosecutors’ reports in the Greek match-fixing case run to hundreds of pages of phone-tap evidence and witness testimony. Dozens of former players, club staff, referees, Super League and HFF officials are currently awaiting trial as the judicial authorities in Athens pursue their criminal cases.
While match-fixing in Greece has been taking place at the level of club owners, board members and senior club executives, they will not be mandated to attend the workshops, though the HFF is, reportedly, sending all its officials to the workshops.
Sportradar will deliver 36 workshops to clubs next season (the 16 Super League clubs and the 20 clubs in Liga 1), three workshops to match officials and one to the HFF. The workshops are backed up by more than 2,000 e-learning modules and assessments aimed at ensuring those who have attended have paid attention.
Sportradar Managing Director Security Services Andreas Krannich said: “Any federation that shows this level of commitment and conviction will always get our support. Today is the launch of an ambitious Integrity Tour and I think it underlines the HFF’s and the President’s dedication to the players, to the officials and of course to the fans.Greek football has a proud tradition with teams whose names echo through European football history.”
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