Brussels, 14th October – A leading MEP and former professional cricketer has called for more action to tackle match fixing on sports events in the UK and across Europe.
West Midlands MEP and former Warwickshire player Daniel Dalton said: “The integrity of sport is absolutely paramount and we have to do all we can to protect it.”
Mr Dalton made his comments to leading betting operators and regulators during an even he today hosted in the European Parliament.
Mr Dalton added, “Much work is being done with governing bodies, betting operators and law enforcement agencies but we need to make sure individual players who have been approached or are worried about a situation have a crystal clear understanding about there responsibilities in reporting match fixing”.
The Vice Chairman of World Snooker Nigel Mawer who has worked directly with players and officials in high profile cases for over a decade said “Often players are experiencing their first opportunity to earn real money and are quite naive on a whole host of issues when they join the tour. I have been working with players, talking to them, discussing what they can say and do. Daniel is quite right, we can monitor betting markets but also need to involve players early on.”
Mr Dalton concluded, “It is absolutely vital that spectators, viewers and participants have confidence in the integrity of the sports events that they watch. At the same time, consumers must have confidence and belief that when they place bets with UK licensed operators they are doing so on markets that are fair and free from betting-related corruption.”
Central to this is collaborative working across all stakeholders helping to understand, identify and respond to any potential threat thereby protecting the integrity of sport and betting.
