Kicking illegal betting out of football FIFA's 'early warning system'.

Blackshaw, Ian

The manipulation of sport through illegal betting undermines its integrity. For most punters, betting on the outcome of sporting events, especially football matches, football being the world's most popular sport, is an innocent and harmless pastime. But for a minority, it is way of getting rich by fixing and throwing the results of matches and betting large stakes on them.

FIFA, the world governing body of football, is well aware of this problem and, under article 2 (e) of its Statutes, is committed to protecting and safeguarding the integrity of the 'beautiful game' through prevention and early warning. And so, in 2005, in time for the last World Cup in Germany in 2006, FIFA set up a legally independent company, without any commercial interests at all in the field of international sports gaming, called 'Early Warning System GmbH' (EWS), which is based in Zurich, Switzerland. Incidentally, of course, one way of stopping such betting would be to impose a wholesale ban on sports betting generally, but that would not be in anybody's interests.

The aim of EWS is to identify irregular betting patterns and manipulation of gaming in international sport. The system is primarily geared towards prevention, wherever possible. But, where this not possible and illegal betting is identified after the event, EWS is available to assist sports governing bodies in pursuing offenders with appropriate sporting sanctions. For example, FIFA introduced in 2006 changes to its Code of Ethics prohibiting officials and players from participating in betting on football matches. Any breaches of this Code will be visited with severe sporting sanctions, which, hopefully, will act as a deterrent against would be offenders!

In order to identify illegal betting activities, EWS has established cooperation agreements with some 400 national and international bookmakers, who have agreed to report to EWS any irregular betting activities in sport that they may come across. All this is carried out on a strictly confidential basis between the bookmakers and EWS.

In addition to this valuable source of information, EWS is also in the process of monitoring the sports betting market and establishing a wealth of intelligence on sports betting through its own researches and those of specialist research companies and organisations around the world. As a result, EWS has already built up and is adding to a very important data base on the sports betting industry and how it functions and operates internationally.

Of course, it is impossible to completely eradicate criminal activity in the field of international sports betting, and EWS is fully aware of these limitations, but, nevertheless, is committed to doing all it possibly can, wherever possible, to identify, prevent and expose irregular and illegal betting on sport in general - EWS monitored the 2008 Beijing Olympics - and football in particular.

These are laudable and noble objectives and, with the support and cooperation of the international sporting community and bookmakers, who also have a significant commercial interest to protect, EWS stands a good - in fact, one might say, a sporting - chance of winning the battle against illegal betting which, without any doubt, blights sport, is incompatible with its objectives of fair play and undermines its integrity.

Further information about EWS and its activities can be obtained by logging onto its official website at www.fifa-ews.com.