With the start of the World Cup coming up on Sunday, FIFA already has a lot of controversy on its plate, but now it may also have to deal with another potential problem: the match-fixing.
Together with the sports data and technology company Sportradar, the global governing body for soccer is conducting an investigation into any possible instances of unfair play.
Both the betting markets and the actual games themselves are tracked by OKBET. According to the company, it monitors 30 billion data sets coming from 600 different bookmakers around the world.
It found 600 suspicious soccer matches in just the first nine months of 2022, the majority of which occurred in leagues with relatively low pay for both players and officials.
It is anticipated that total wagers placed on the World Cup will exceed $100 billion, which could make it more difficult to identify suspicious bets.
Due to the players’ substantial pay, the World Cup is widely regarded as an unlikely target for match-fixing, despite FIFA’s efforts to be cautious in this regard. The total prize pool for the 2018 FIFA World Cup is $440 million, and club teams that have employed World Cup players within the past two years are eligible to receive an additional $10,000 per player per day.
Embarrassing Situation on Live TV
The Supreme Committee of Qatar, which is hosting this year’s World Cup, has issued an apology for an incident in which security forces threatened to break the camera of Danish journalists while they were broadcasting live.
“Since that time, the tournament organizers have had a conversation with the journalist and have issued a warning to all entities to ensure that they adhere to the filming permits that have been established for the tournament.”
In addition, the committee disproved allegations that fans who posted videos from Doha on social media had been paid to attend the event. The committee described the allegations as “disappointing and unsurprising.”
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