KUALA LUMPUR: The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has strengthened its fight against match-fixing by signing a four-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).
Under this agreement, AFC and IBIA will collaborate closely to identify irregular betting patterns and suspicious activities in football matches across Asia.
The IBIA will utilise its monitoring and alert platform to share real-time data on suspicious betting activities with AFC, boosting the confederation's ability to swiftly investigate potential match manipulation.
Earlier this year, AFC extended its partnership with betting-related data provider Sportradar until 2027.
"Collaborating with the world's leading organisations is essential in our battle against match-fixing. This MoU with the IBIA further strengthens our efforts to ensure football in Asia remains clean, for the benefit of future generations of fans, players, and all our valued stakeholders," said AFC general counsel and director of legal affairs Andrew Mercer.
"AFC is committed to promoting integrity, ethics, and fair play in Asian football, and we are pleased to partner with the IBIA to bolster our monitoring capabilities. Together, we aim to safeguard football on this continent from the threat of match manipulation."
Mercer said Sportradar will continue to serve as AFC's core service provider for integrity matters, particularly in monitoring and investigations.
"This MoU with the IBIA supplements our existing efforts by offering an additional source of information, enhancing our ability to detect suspicious activities.
"These partnerships demonstrate that the AFC is proactive in maintaining integrity, and we've made significant progress in a short time to uphold these standards."
Several cases of match-fixing have been reported in Asia over the last decade, and this new initiative comes at a crucial time in the fight to eradicate football corruption.