European football’s governing body, UEFA, extended its relationship with Sportradar by signing a new four-year agreement, which will see the betting monitoring company continue to monitor betting movements in European football in order to report any suspicious patterns. ‘Sportradar has been monitoring betting movements on European football matches since 2006 and the renewal of the agreement will see Sportradar use the market-leading UEFA Betting Fraud Detection System (BFDS) to monitor the top two professional football leagues and domestic cup competitions in each of UEFA’s 54 member associations until the summer of 2019’, read a 9 October media release. ‘The renewal will also see UEFA add Sportradar’s Fraud Prevention Service e-learning tutorials for the first time. The tutorials will be rolled out to all teams and players participating in the UEFA’s Men’s and Women’s Under-19 and Under-17 final tournaments during the next four seasons.’

“We are aware via the UEFA Betting Fraud Detection System that 0.7% of the 30,000+ matches monitored annually present some suspicion, but even one match is one too many”, said UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino. “Among the services available to tackle this menace, the UEFA Betting Fraud Detection System is simply the best monitoring solution, and this long-standing partnership will help us to continue being vigilant and effective in safeguarding our sport for future generations.”

Yesterday, Sweden’s Council for Crime Prevention (BRA) launched an investigation into match-fixing today, in partnership with the Swedish football association (SvFF), the Swedish Sports Confederation (RF) and state gambling operator, Svenska Spel. The SvFF said it had been alerted to match-fixing problems after receiving reports of abnormal betting patterns from UEFA.