The Union of European Football Associations announced over the weekend that it is launching an investigation into 25 matches due to irregular betting.
The news comes after a two-day meeting of the UEFA’s online casino executive committee in Bordeaux, France at which members also discussed several other topics—including confirmation of Ukraine and Poland as the hosts of the Euro 2012 championships and the expansion of the association to include 24 teams.
"There is a danger within our game, but we will not let irregular betting patterns or corruption affect the outcome of matches," UEFA secretary general David Taylor said.
According to the committee’s plans, a six-man unit made up of specialists in illegal-betting inves- tigation will monitor matches in every European league, including the Champions League. The casino committee has yet to mention specific names, but UEFA legal affairs director Gianni Infantino stated that the unit would be up and running by next season.
"We will start recruiting immediately," Infantino said. "We need additional expertise. We have to set up the necessary tools to fight this."
In forming the unit, the UEFA is following the lead of several other sports organizations. The Association of Tennis Professionals, the International Cricket Council and the British Horseracing Association have also created "integrity" units to ensure that referees and players don’t throw events as part of a betting scheme.
But singular to the UEFA’s action is the call for government support. The organization submitted a 96-page report last year to Europol that detailed its suspicions over ten matches from this year’s season cup and 15 matches from the previous season. Since then, 15 of the matches reported are still under scrutiny. The suspected matches were played not only in the Champions League but, also, the UEFA Cup and the Intertoto Cup.
"Sports authorities can’t police these problems without government support," Infantino said. "Governing bodies have access to online casinos information sports associations don’t."
As for UEFA president Michael Platini, his comments concerning the unit’s formation were anything but soft:
"We are going to reinforce our activities regarding betting and bolster our inspectors," he said. "We already have an early-warning system, which tells us there is some kind of irregularity surrounding a match."
"We must be vigilant," he added. "If matches are being bought, then what is the point of playing football? It’s not the act of betting (on football) which annoys me, but that one should buy off a player to throw games.
"If I come across casinos players who have done that, they will be banned for life. We will not yield on that—(there will be) zero tolerance as with racism and hooliganism."
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