A standing relationship between Germany’s Bundesliga soccer league and Sportradar is going to continue. The two have decided to renew their partnership in an effort to help keep German soccer clean and to continue efforts to monitor games for possible match-fixing. Under the newly-signed extension, Bundesliga and Sportradar will work hand-in-hand for another two years before deciding how to proceed at that time.
Sportradar is expected to continue its monitoring efforts, through its Fraud Detection System (FDS), of games for both Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, as well as playoffs between the two and playoffs between Bundesliga 2 and Bundesliga 3. It will also monitor matches for Liga and the Supercup.
The extension will also see the sports monitoring and analysis company work with the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), operator of Bundesliga, to provide training to Bundesliga players and staff on the problems associated with match-fixing. Those efforts are expected to include an online tutorial site covering gambling addiction, as well as other topics.
Since the most recent soccer season, Bundesliga teams have been required to undergo annual training related to integrity issues in the sport. If a soccer club doesn’t offer the training or doesn’t prove that its players participated in the program, it runs the risk of losing its license.
Earlier in the week, the German Football Association signed a deal with Genius Sports to create and implement a new integrity program that would help to prevent corruption and match-fixing in soccer games. That agreement also covers games in the Bundesliga components, meaning that it is going to become even more difficult to get away with rigging the outcome of games.
The goal with all of the oversight is to help keep matches honest and clean, and to avoid embarrassing situations like what have been seen recently in Spain. Several Spanish soccer clubs and players in the La Liga organization have been caught up in a match-fixing scandal and a couple are looking at jail time because of their actions. Spain is looking to deal with the problem on a national level, establishing a government commission that will “develop action plans [and] recommendations or diagnoses to detect, prevent and combat illegal actions in the field of sports competitions and fraud in betting.”
