FIFA Wary of Match-Fixing with $100B Expected in World Cup Bets

FIFA already has plenty of controversy on its plate with the World Cup starting on Sunday, but now it’s got another potential problem: match-fixing.

Soccer’s global governing body is working with sports data and technology company Sportradar to identify any signs of unfair play.

• Sportradar monitors both the betting markets and the games themselves. The company says it tracks 30 billion data sets from 600 global bookmakers.
• It identified 600 suspicious soccer matches in the first nine months of 2022 alone, mostly in leagues with relatively low pay for players and officials.
• Global bets on the World Cup are expected to top $100 billion, making suspicious wagers potentially harder to identify.

Though FIFA is being cautious, the World Cup is considered an unlikely target for match-fixing due to players’ ample compensation. FIFA will distribute $440 million in prize money, plus $10,000 per player per day to club teams that have employed World Cup players in the last two years. 

Ugly Live TV Moment

World Cup host Qatar’s Supreme Committee apologized for an incident in which security forces threatened to break the camera of Danish journalists during a live broadcast. 

“Tournament organizers have since spoken to the journalist and issued an advisory to all entities to respect the filming permits in place for the tournament.”

The committee also rejected claims that videos from Doha posted on social media were from fans paid to be there, calling the accusations “disappointing and unsurprising.”