FIFA: 'no signs of matchfixing'
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Johannesburg - There were no indications so far of match-fixing in soccer's 2010 World Cup tournament, FIFA legal affairs director Marco Villiger said in Johannesburg on Friday.
Speaking at a media breakfast in Sandton, he confirmed however that teams would require closer monitoring for "betting Mafia" activity in the next week or so as they battled to survive the first round.
"Although it's impossible to guarantee that any competition is safe from attempts to externally influence matches, FIFA is doing everything it can to ensure the risk is minimised," he said.
Soccer's controlling body had created an intelligence-gathering and monitoring subsidiary company called Early Warning System (EWS), which first got under way at Germany's World Cup in 2006.
It now had cooperation agreements with more than 400 bookmakers and betting organisations worldwide, which had agreed to report any irregular betting activities they picked up.
The system was also commissioned to monitor betting activity around the 2008 Beijing Olympic games.
Through a complex technical system and alarm hotlines, EWS was also plugged into a range of service providers, specialists and investigation units, and linked to Interpol too, to gather a large quantity of betting industry information.
"So far, EWS has not found evidence of any match-fixing attempts during matches of FIFA competitions.
"This does not guarantee no such irregularities have ever taken place but EWS is improving every day with a wider network of information providers."
Match-fixing typically involves bribing or blackmailing players, referees and other match officials to turn a game. Processes had also been put in place for players to seek help when put under pressure.
Villiger said an added complication these days was that the soccer betting market was no longer simply on a win, lose or draw basis, but focused also on separate sections of a match or, isolated incidents, for example, when the first yellow card would be shown.
"We would prefer not to have this live betting but we understand it adds to the excitement."
Besides the monitoring and preventive focus on match-fixing attempts, FIFA was also intent on strengthening its investigative capacity.
"Match-fixing is a far bigger threat to football than doping ...so much of it happens on the Internet, spanning a number of continents, so it's very difficult to pin down in terms of jurisdiction."
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