IBIA seals four-year collaboration with Asian Football Confederation
Multi-year Memorandum of Understanding with the continent’s football governing body will see both parties share information in an attempt to tackle suspicious betting activity in the sport
The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to tackle suspicious betting activity across the continent.
The four-year agreement will see both parties work together to monitor irregular and suspicious betting patterns across football matches in Asia.
IBIA will share real-time data on betting activity with the AFC via its Monitoring and Alert Platform, giving the AFC more tools to properly investigate any potential incidents of match-fixing.
IBIA CEO Khalid Ali said: “Cooperation is a vital part of any effective integrity monitoring and investigatory framework and IBIA is delighted to be able to strengthen its relationship with the AFC through this important information sharing collaboration.
“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.”
The AFC described the collaboration as “a significant step forward in the fight against match-fixing in Asian football” .
Andrew Mercer, general counsel and director of legal affairs for the AFC, added: “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.
“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.”
The AFC becomes IBIA’s latest partner after the trade body entered into an integrity agreement with Dutch operator 711.BV back in August and with Bally’s in July.
The organisation also partnered with data firm Genius Sports back in June.
IBIA reported 90 suspicious betting alerts during Q2 2024, with esports bets making up 54% of irregular cases.
During Q1, Asia accounted for 41% of IBIA’s suspicious betting alerts (23), with football being responsible for 12 of them. The body did not provide a geographical breakdown for Q2.
Last month, the Chinese FA handed out 43 lifetime bans for gambling and match-fixing which implicated South Korean national team player Son Jun-ho and Cameroonian starlet Donovan Ewolo.