Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, generating incredible revenues each year for both clubs and various organizations, so it's no wonder that it has been a target for scammers for many years. Criminals of various kinds try to influence the outcome of matches in order to make huge profits through betting companies. Of course, such activities simply kill football, and for some time now the situation has been trying to be saved by the international company "Sportradar", which analyzes sports data and provides services to bookmakers and national federations. According to experts from this company, a study conducted between 2017 and 2019 revealed the work pattern of criminals targeting football. It is claimed that more than 50% of contracted matches have live bets placed within the first 15 minutes of the match. Having examined 1700 suspicious matches in three years, "Sportradar" found that 40% (628) of them were played in the second-tier leagues. In the top leagues, there were 377, in the third-tier and lower leagues - 298, and in youth championships - 149 matches. "Football is the most popular sport in the world, so it is vital to ensure its reliability by monitoring as many matches in all tiers of countries as possible. By doing so, the company identified specific trends and models that allow for quickly detecting fixed matches, while also helping our sports and law enforcement partners investigate them," said one of "Sportradar" directors, Tomas Mace. In 2009 and earlier, after detecting 134 suspicious cases in sports matches, the company observed a significant increase in fraudsters, and since that period, over 5,000 fixed matches have been identified. A kind of record was set in 2017 when criminals targeted as many as 661 sports matches. The situation has not changed much in 2020 either. Despite almost the entire world of sports being halted due to the coronavirus pandemic, the numbers did not decrease - as of June 9, 213 cases have been identified. This shows that "on schedule" is not far behind the total number of cases from the previous year (660). How match-fixing agreements take place and how they can be avoided is written in Declan Hill's sensational book "The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime". All news related to suspicious outcomes can be found here.
