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NEWSLETTER 3 NOVEMBER 2005

 

Press release

 

MATCH FIXING MOVES UP ON PLAY THE GAME AGENDA

 

Match fixing is rapidly becoming the ultimate threat to the credibility of sport and an issue which sports federations and betting companies urgently need to address. The world communication conference on sport and society, Play the Game, has therefore decided to step up the public debate about match fixing in a special session with contributions from both the private and the public betting industry.

 

Warwick Bartlett, founder and owner of Global Betting and Gaming Consultants, will represent the corporate betting industry. From the state-owned sector, director Tjeerd Veenstra from the Dutch De Lotto has agreed to join Play the Game at very short notice.

 

Tjeerd Veenstra is also a member of the Executive Board of EL, European State Lotteries and Toto Association, which has just established an early warning system with the European football federation, UEFA. EL and its member lotteries will help UEFA to clamp down on attempts of match fixing by monitoring betting patterns on particular matches and warning UEFA about anything suspicious.

 

The two representatives from the betting industry will discuss what betting companies and sports federations can do to combat match fixing and what legislators should do. They will also discuss if the deregulation of the gambling market will make it more difficult to put an end to match fixing.

 

The debate will be joined by Canadian freelance journalist Declan Hill who is doing research into the dynamics of match fixing at Oxford University in Britain.

 

Declan Hill has looked at match fixing over a period of three years and turned up examples from everywhere in the world.

 

“We must take match fixing much more seriously than we do today.  If one or two football players are done for doping our enthusiasm for the sports does not diminish. But it is an entirely different matter if we find out that we have been supporting a team that did not want to win or was not allowed to win,” says Declan Hill.

 

The debate takes place in the afternoon on Monday 7 November. It is chaired by Henrik H. Brandt, director of the Danish Institute for Sports Studies. Henrik H. Brandt has provided this overview of current match fixing scandals in Europe for Play the Game.