October 7 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have signed a four-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) to combat match fixing in the Asian region.
The agreement comes just four weeks after the Chinese FA banned 43 people, including 38 players and five club officials for life following a two-year investigation into match fixing.
A Sportradar study outlined Asia had the highest increase in match fixing reports in 2023. Based on the monitoring of approximately 850,000 events and matches across 70 sports, the report highlights a total of 1,329 suspicious matches in 2023, with football holding the majority.
Moving forward, the AFC and IBIA have said they will work closely to detect irregular betting patterns and suspicious activities in football matches across Asia.
AFC General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs, Andrew Mercer said: “The AFC’s Vision and Mission has outlined our steadfast ambitions to uphold the highest ethical and sporting standards, and we are committed towards preserving our key tenets of fair play and integrity.
“Leveraging on strong collaborations with the world’s leading organisations is imperative to our fight against match-fixing and this MoU with IBIA further strengthens our ability to ensure football in Asia remains clean for the benefit of our future generation of fans, players and all our valued stakeholders.”
The MoU aims to take a significant step forward in the fight against match-fixing in Asian football with both organisations pledging to “create a secure environment for the sport, fostering trust amongst fans, players and all stakeholders”.
Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said: “Cooperation is a vital part of any effective integrity monitoring and investigatory framework and IBIA is delighted to be able to strengthen its relationship with the AFC through this important information sharing collaboration. For its part, IBIA will seek to safeguard the AFC ecosystem by utilising the monitoring of its members’ global customer account activity, which covers over $300 billion in sports betting per annum.”
Mercer, added: “The AFC is committed to promoting integrity, ethics, and fair play in Asian football and we are pleased to work with IBIA as we strive to enhance our capabilities to monitor and address suspicious activities, ensuring that football in Asia is safeguarded from the threats of match manipulation.”
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at moc.l1732239692labto1732239692ofdlr1732239692owedi1732239692sni@g1732239692niwe.1732239692yrrah1732239692
