Our country was ranked third in the European list of games manipulated for betting purposes in 2023
The four years of Lefteris Avgenakis in the political leadership of sports was disastrous and this is proven several months after his departure from the deputy ministry. One of the serious problems of Greek football, which he supposedly tried to “cure” Avgenakis, is the manipulation of matches for betting purposes. What the former sports minister did was purely for communication reasons and match fixing still stigmatizes the “king of sports” in our country.
Based on Sportradar’s annual report for 2023, it appears that our country… won the bronze medal in Europe in terms of suspicious matches. Greece had 46 matches rigged, and only Russia with 55 and the Czech Republic with 67, which also took first place on the relevant list, were above it. In fourth place is Kazakhstan with 43 games.
At the global level, Greece fell to the 5th level of corruption. Brazil has by far the most rigged games with 109. From there, the Philippines follow with 65 games, Vietnam with 42, Peru with 38 and Argentina with 36.
The report, entitled “Corruption and match-fixing in 2023”, is based on Sportradar’s monitoring of 850,000 sporting events and matches in 70 sports. The total of 1,329 suspect matches in eleven sports were played in 105 countries. Football has the lion’s share of match fixing. Of the 1,329 fixed matches, 880 are between football teams.
Compared to 2022 the data shows that the suspected manipulation rate across all sports remained stable at 0.21%. Or one in 467 matches in 2023 was “spoken”. “No sport has a proportion of suspicious matches greater than 1%, confirming that in 99.5% of the sporting events monitored, no suspicious bets were detected,” the report states, among other things, while it is pointed out that “the vast majority of suspicious matches continue to involve suspicious live bets and this happened 95% of the time. In this “group” of matches, the suspicious bet appeared in the first half of the matches in 70% of the cases.
What happens in 2024
In Greek football, the manipulation of matches continues in 2024 and mainly concerns the Super League 2 championship. As documentonews.gr also reported, three other files with games of the 2nd League, which are considered suspicious for manipulation for betting reasons, were sent by Sportradar to EPO. The federation forwarded the files to the Parliament and the chairman of the Educational Affairs Committee, Christos Kellas, made them public. These are the following matches: Victory of Volos – Aeolian 3-1 (February 14th), Victory of Volos – Apollon Pontos 5-0 (February 22nd) and Apollon Pontos – Makedonikos 0-3 (February 25th).
In the report of the Betting Fraud Detection Company for the game between Niki Volos and Apollon Pontou, the following is noted: “There was a lot of money on Apollon Pontou losing in the first half and losing by at least two goals in a match that would have at least three goal. It is estimated that the visiting team may have participated in the manipulation.” In the report it is also noted that coach Dimitris Kalaitzidis was on the bench of Apollon P. in ten suspicious matches (however, no such thing has been proven).
In the match Niki B. – Apollon Pontou, the suspicious betting was confirmed, after the home team prevailed 5-0.
For the Niki Volou – Aeolikos victory, it is noted that there was betting to score at least four goals. The report also mentions a Niki football player who was involved in a suspicious match while playing for Apollon Larissa. And in this game, those who bet that the two teams will score a total of at least four goals were right.
For the game between Apollon Pontos and Makedonikos, the suspicious bets were that the home team would lose by at least two goals and that at least three goals would be scored in the 90th minute. And here the suspicious betting was confirmed, as the guests prevailed 3-0.
Confirmation from EPATHLA as well
The National Platform for Sports Integrity (EPATHLA) announced that in 2023 it received 105 reports of suspicious matches, 40 findings were drawn up, nine of which were forwarded for further investigation (eight football and one basketball). Of the 105 reports, 53 were related to football (49 from Super League 2), 16 to volleyball, 13 to basketball and the remaining eleven other sports.
In terms of the sources of the reports, they were: 33 by Sportradar via UEFA, 29 by EPATHLA’s anonymous reporting platform, 15 by ULIS, nine by RED BUTTON and 19 by other sources.
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