Asian Football Confederation signs contract

Kuala Lumpur, Nov 21, 2013: Sportradar is pleased to announce the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) as its latest integrity partner. Under this agreement, Sportradar will monitor a number of competitions including the AFC Champions League, AFC Cup and the 2015 Asian Cup and Qualifiers for signs of betting-related corruption and fraudulent activity.

Since 2004, Sportradar’s Fraud Detection System (FDS) has successfully monitored a range of sports and has unrivaled experience and expertise in the identification of suspicious betting practices across the world. The FDS processes 432 million odds movements per day at over 350 global bookmakers including Asian and European betting markets offered by retail and online bookmakers, betting exchanges, spread betting firms and state lotteries. The system analyses over 53,000 matches in detail each year and identifies any suspicious odds movements worthy of further investigation by Sportradar’s team of expert analysts.

The recent football match-fixing investigation in Australia perfectly highlights the benefits of Sportradar’s extensive skills, technology and knowledge in this field; not only did it detect suspected manipulated matches bit its unique systems and databases were used to warn the authorities in advance of individuals of interest registering to play in their leagues. The seriousness of this case was highlighted in late October when FIFA extended the Australian football-related activity ban imposed on the four players and one official involved in the case to apply worldwide.

This case, along with other recent issues in sports around the world, reflects the true global threat posed by match-fixing in the 21st century. Those responsible are employing ever more diverse methods and targeting previously unaffected countries and sports in a bid to maximize illicit betting profits. AFC are being proactive by installing a robust integrity program and the relationship with Sportradar will be a vital step in safeguarding the integrity of Asian football in the future.

Sportradar CEO, Carsten Koerl said, “Sportradar is honoured to have the opportunity to utilize our technology and expertise to work closely with AFC to help protect the integrity of Asian football”.

AFC General Secretary Dato’ Alex Soosay, said, “AFC’s partnership with Sportradar is the latest step taken to counter the threat that match-fixing poses to football in Asia. We look forward to utilizing Sportradar’s proven expertise in this field and developing an effective working partnership”. —- AFC