The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has signed a four-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) to protect the sport.
Following the signing of the MoU, the AFC and IBIA will collaborate to monitor and detect irregular betting patterns and suspicious activities in football matches across Asia. Using its Monitoring and Alert Platform, IBIA will provide the AFC with real-time data on suspicious betting, strengthening the AFC’s ability to quickly investigate potential match-fixing.
The AFC General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs, Andrew Mercer said: “The AFC’s Vision and Mission has outlined our steadfast ambitions to uphold the highest ethical and sporting standards, and we are committed towards preserving our key tenets of fair play and integrity.
“Leveraging on strong collaborations with the world’s leading organisations is imperative to our fight against match-fixing and this MoU with IBIA further strengthens our ability to ensure football in Asia remains clean for the benefit of our future generation of fans, players and all our valued stakeholders.”
Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, highlighted that cooperation is essential for a successful integrity monitoring and investigation framework. He expressed that the IBIA is “delighted” to enhance its partnership with the AFC through this important information-sharing collaboration.
Ali added: “For its part, IBIA will seek to safeguard the AFC ecosystem by utilising the monitoring of its members’ global customer account activity, which covers over $300bn in sports betting per annum.”
In recent years, Asia, especially China, has struggled to uphold integrity in football, impacting the country’s ability to compete and qualify for major tournaments. However, the region appears to be making progress in addressing these issues and working to restore the integrity of the game.
Last month, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) issued lifetime bans to 43 individuals for match-fixing and related corruption as a result of a two-year investigation.
Mercer added: “The AFC is committed to promoting integrity, ethics, and fair play in Asian football and we are pleased to work with IBIA as we strive to enhance our capabilities to monitor and address suspicious activities, ensuring that football in Asia is safeguarded from the threats of match manipulation.”
