Uefa launches anti-match-fixing education initiative

Organised by Uefa in collaboration with the University of Lausanne’s (UNIL) School of Criminal Justice, Fight the Fix (FTF) will support national associations’ integrity officers and representatives of institutions involved in fighting match-fixing.

The new programme will provide participants with intelligence-gathering and investigation skills required to identify, investigate and prosecute match-fixing cases.

The initiative will focus on hands-on practise, with participants solving a fictitious match-fixing case, following the full intelligence and investigation process from identification to prosecution before a final moot court simulating sports arbitration proceeding.

The first FTF session took place earlier this month at Uefa HQ in Switzerland and focused on the detection phase. The second event will take place online and look at intelligence, and the final session at the Italian Football Association in Rome to emphasise prosecution.

“Match-fixing is one of the biggest threats to the integrity of the beautiful game and it is Uefa’s duty to remain at the vanguard in the fight,” Uefa president Aleksander Čeferin said. “Maintaining trust in the sport means increasing expertise and support for those involved in the fight at national and international levels

UNIL associate professor Stefano Caneppele and Uefa’s managing director of integrity and regulatory Angelo Rigopoulos added: “The first week of the FTF was extremely successful. The session aimed at bringing together the knowledge from academics, international sport federations and practitioners to stimulate active participation and exchange of views on the mechanisms and on the challenges in detecting match-fixing. 

“We would like to thank all the speakers for the quality of their presentations and the participants for their enthusiasm and strong commitment. We are looking forward to meeting them for the next session in February 2023.”

Last month, global integrity body IBIA revealed it recorded 76 instances of suspicious betting in the third quarter of the year. Of these, 13 came from football of which four were in Uefa member countries.