Match-fixing a vital battle to win: UEFA integrity chief

MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, Sept 28, (AFP): Combating match-fixing in football is absolutely crucial for the integrity of the sport, says Emilio Garcia UEFA’s head of disciplinary and integrity matters.

However, he concedes that it is not an easy task with the mafia behind a lot of corruption.

Garcia, who was speaking at the SoccerEx Global Football Convention, said it was crucial to get local authorities in different countries on board. “The fight against matchfixing is vital,” he said. “It is not easy because behind this we have the mafia and they are not normal guys.”

“We need collaboration from the local authorities and co-operation with the police because that is the main way to tackle the problem.”

“We don’t have a problem with betting on football, there are several teams who have betting sponsors on their shirts. It is the illegal betting that we are concerned about and why we look at betting patterns.”

However, Ricardo de Buen, an arbitrator from the Court for Arbitration and Sport (CAS), said there was a quandary in the battle on one of the scourges of the sport as exemplified by Mexico for example.

“It is important that in some cases the state intervenes,” said De Buen, who has worked as an arbitrator at CAS for over 14 years. “We have seen some ineffective punishments imposed by federations in matchfixing cases.”