UEFA introduces new course on match-fixing in football

UEFA has announced that it is launching a new course that will be developed in collaboration with the University of Lausanne’s School of Criminal Justice, marking the organization’s latest and continuing efforts to safeguard the integrity of the sport and make sure that stakeholders understand the seriousness of the matter. With the World Cup 2022 fast-approaching, UEFA wants to make sure that it maintains a strong commitment to making sports safer and free of manipulation.

To this end, the organization is calling on sporting governing bodies, national and international authorities and law enforcement to work together in order to achieve the ultimate goal that is the eradication of match manipulation. The course is named "Fight the Fix" and hopes to make it possible for more people involved with sports to resist match-fixing, but also identify and report red flags.

The program aims to train people involved with the management of national leagues and the sport as a whole to be better prepared when they face match-fixing or spot early signs that manipulation may be afoot. The course focuses on three main pivots, to name detection, intelligence, and prosecution.

The program is designed in a way that it provides people with the necessary intelligence-gathering and investigation skills and competencies to be an active part in fighting match-fixing and lead probes on a regional level. Having more people trained regionally and locally would mean that UEFA would be capable of conducting swift investigations that do not necessarily have to come with top-heavy oversight due to lack of competent cadres.

All participants in the program will be given hands-on practice and be educated about what needs to be done to stem the tide of match-fixing. In the meantime, UEFA does not necessarily expect match-fixing attempts during the World Cup as the event is too heavily monitored and it would trigger suspicions immediately.

Commenting on this new course, UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin spoke about the importance of continuing to invest in efforts to crack down on corruption on national and international levels in the sport:

"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. Maintaining trust in the sport means increasing expertise and support for those involved in the fight at national and international levels."

Attendees were pleased with the opportunity. UNIL Associate Professor Stefano Caneppele and UEFA Managing Director of Integrity and Regulatory Angelo Rigopoulos both offered praised for the first week of Fight the Fix program and hailed it as "extremely successful."

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