Organised crime is not the only driver behind match-fixing. Financial instability and unequal distribution of revenue in European football are other factors, explains Steve Menary and calls on sport authorities to help find solutions.

The number of new clubs entering the Champions League has fallen this season as many of the same coterie of clubs continue to dominate leagues across Europe.

Football matches are coming back after the corona lockdown and so is match-fixing. Steve Menary outlines the problems in stemming the rise of match-fixing in friendly games between clubs: Data scouts with low integrity, lack of monitoring, and federations that do not take responsibility.

At Play the Game 2019 professionals, journalists and academics with extensive experience in the fight against match-fixing will present and discuss the global problem of fixed sport competitions which continue to threaten the credibility of sport despite various initiatives and measures to prevent it.

Potential corruption and match-fixing at the World Cup is aided by corrupt national football association officials, says Declan Hill in this 2018 FIFA World Cup curtain raiser. FIFA’s ‘often odd’ attitude towards these officials protects the fixers, he says and points to three factors that characterise matches vulnerable to match-fixing.

The Independent Review Panel investigating corruption in tennis released its interim report at a press conference on Wednesday. The final report is expected later this year.

In a new book, Swedish journalists and authors Jens Littorin and Magnus Svenungsson reveal that match-fixing is prevalent in Sweden and that a passive approach towards the problem is partly to blame.

Albania’s leading football club, Skenderbeu, is facing allegations of match manipulation on a “stunning global scale” to obtain betting profits.