As the 2014 FIFA World Cup begins this week, concerns surrounding the world’s most popular sporting event are going beyond the games themselves.
Match-fixing, long a concern surrounding World Cup events was once again on bettors’ minds after Police launched an investigation last week into alleged attempts to fix a World Cup match between Scotland and Nigeria. According to London’s Telegraph, the U.K. National Crime Agency has asked FIFA to issue an alert over potential attempt to fix the football match, one of a sequence of “friendlies,” or warm-up games to the main World Cup.
The news comes on the heels of another match-fixing case in which a Singaporean convicted match-fixer claimed he helped Honduras and Nigeria qualify for the World Cup.
England has been the epicenter of match-fixing, according to a report delivered to the European Parliament last week. Eleven matches in Britain were found to have evidence of betting fraud in the report, more than any other country. The report gave a black eye to the reputation of English football.
Meanwhile, authorities in Thailand are cracking down on illegal betting in advance of the World Cup. The Thai military’s deputy spokesman went on national television last week to publicly instruct the army and police to be on the lookout for illegal betting operators. Authorities have been told to submit daily reports to the National Council for Peace and Order, and were warned that failure to act with sufficient zeal would result in disciplinary action and/or criminal punishment.
