Measures to tighten controls in football and set up a specialised unit to investigate corruption and match-fixing claims are expected to be tabled by the end of the year.
Local football was thrown into the spotlight at the beginning of the year when MFA integrity officer Franz Tabone claimed the local game was “infested” with corruption.
Speaking on Times Talk last February, Mr Tabone said a former president of a football club had admitted that although he had started out with the intention of playing clean, he had no choice but to become the most corrupt of the lot.
An anti-corruption task force was set up last January in the wake of the revelations. Malta Football Association general secretary Bjorn Vassallo said the task force is due to meet later this month as talks had been suspended for the summer months.
So far the commission, which consists of representatives from the government, Opposition, MFA, the Malta Gaming Authority, the police and the Kunsill Malti għall-Isport has met four times.
€199,261
- the total sum of official bets placed on each Maltese premier game
Figures provided by the Office of the Prosecutor within the MFA show that last season €39.7 million was placed in legal bets from around the world on matches from Malta’s Premier Division, which equated to €199,261 per game.
The figure is marginally higher than that of the previous season, which stood at €38.9 million. However, the overall figures is more likely to be in the region of €50 million when taking into account games from the FA Trophy. In a declaration of intent published in its last meeting held in May, the task force outlined its three-pronged plan to address corruption in local sport: education and prevention, legislation and regulation and investigation.
“Three working groups have been tasked to come forward with proposals for each of these three priority areas and have been meeting during the summer,” Mr Vassallo said. “Our aim is for the government to set up a specialised unit, be it in the police or an autonomous entity, to monitor suspicious activity not only in football but also other sports disciplines.”
The MFA general secretary pointed out that until now the onus was completely on the football body to refer cases to the police.
“This system had its disadvantages, as most of the time we would get no further feedback from the authorities,” he said. Under the new structure, the MFA will remain in the loop, able to share intelligence.
“Meanwhile, we have already tightened controls on local casinos, after we learnt it was possible to bet on local football games, in breach of their licence,” he said.
He dispelled concerns raised that it was a free-for-all situation, saying the MFA has been commissioning fraud detection specialists Sportradar of Switzerland to monitor betting patterns for a number of years. In addition, more than 300 games from the Premier League, First Division and the FA Trophy are monitored by live scouts at various venues.
“Two seasons ago former Rabat Ajax goalkeeper Pavle Velimirovic had been caught placing online bets on his own team, thanks to our intelligence. Subsequently he was given a worldwide ban,” Mr Vassallo said. He noted that their efforts against corruption have also earned the praise of UEFA’s head of disciplinary and integrity services, Emilio Garcia, during a visit to Malta two years ago.
The biggest match-fixing threat was not from regularised betting companies but from Asian syndicates.
“In this day and age, match-fixing has become even more absurd than drug dealing because it is very difficult to flag,” he noted.