Asian Football Confederation and IBIA sign MoU to safeguard integrity in football

2024-10-09

Malaysia

Reading time 1:29 min

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), issuing a press release stated that, its resolve to protect and safeguard the game in Asia was further underlined through the signing of a four-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).

Moving forward, the AFC and IBIA will work closely to detect irregular betting patterns and suspicious activities in football matches across Asia. IBIA, through its Monitoring and Alert Platform, will share real-time data on suspicious betting activity with the AFC, further enhancing the AFC’s abilities to promptly investigate potential match manipulation.

Andrew Mercer, AFC General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs, said: “The AFC’s Vision and Mission have outlined our steadfast ambitions to uphold the highest ethical and sporting standards, and we are committed to preserving our key tenets of fair play and integrity."

"Leveraging on strong collaborations with the world’s leading organizations 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," he added.

For his part, Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, 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 utilizing the monitoring of its members’ global customer account activity, which covers over $300 billion in sports betting per annum," he noted.



Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA

"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," Mercer concluded.

The MoU between the AFC and IBIA marks a step forward in the fight against match-fixing in Asian football with both organizations dedicated to creating a secure environment for the sport, fostering trust among fans, players and all stakeholders.