Starlizard Integrity Services attended and spoke at the joint UEFA / Europol conference held at Europol HQ in Den Haag, The Netherlands, on 26th April 2022.
The first event of its kind saw Europol and UEFA bring together key stakeholders to identify new ways to investigate and cooperate on an operational level in cases related to sports corruption and match-fixing.
Starlizard Integrity Services joined a total of 109 senior officials from law enforcement, judicial authorities, national football associations from 49 countries who all attended the session.
Expert panels examined the most pressing current and future threats to protecting the integrity of football and fighting against organised crime groups involved in the facilitation of match-fixing. They discussed topics such as operational collaboration between law enforcement bodies and football Integrity officers, and the early detection of suspicious betting patterns.
Prevention was also high on the agenda, with discussions focusing on new recently adopted legal frameworks and existing tools designed to prevent match-fixing and facilitate information sharing.
Head of Starlizard Integrity Services, Affy Sheikh, spoke to the forum about how betting market analysis and player/referee performance analysis complement and dovetail with each other, and how these can and should be used as a platform for further investigative work to reach the standard of proof required in criminal prosecutions.
UEFA’s Managing Director of Integrity and Regulatory, Angelo Rigopoulos, stated “this first joint Europol-UEFA international conference is an important step forward in the fight against match-fixing, and sends out a strong signal that both organisations are here to pool their forces and do their utmost to minimise this phenomenon”.