Interpol engages with Cosafa

The Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) is once again at the forefront of the fight against the scourge of match-fixing in the region.

Cosafa recently hosted a new pilot project created by Interpol and Fifa in Pretoria, South Africa, that sought to train individuals to become educators in their own countries on the subject of match fixing.

It was just the second time ever that the ‘Train the Trainers' workshop had been staged, the first being in Europe.

Representatives from the football fraternities of Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland, as well as the Cosafa organisation itself, met for a three-day workshop together with Interpol Instructors Julie Norris and Dinis Adriao from their Integrity in Sport Unit, and Nicholas Raudenski from Fifa’s Security Division that focuses on combatting match manipulation.

The workshop set out to train the 14 individuals so that they may in turn take that knowledge back to their own territories and train their local referees and players on the subject of match-fixing – especially how to recognise approaches for what they are, how to resist such approaches and most importantly how to report them.

A second workshop was also organised in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe where participants from Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe underwent the same training.

The result is that the Cosafa region now has trained experts on how to deter match-fixing in 10 of its 14 member countries.

“Southern Africa has been hard-hit by match-fixing scandals over the past few years and Cosafa is honoured and grateful to have been requested by Interpol and Fifa to work alongside their initiative in an effort to combat this blight on our sport,” said Cosafa president Suketu Patel.

Meanwhile, following the successful hosting of Interpol’s Integrity in Sport workshop last year that sought to educate administrators in the Southern Africa region on the spread of match-fixing and how to combat it, Cosafa will host the same course for French speaking countries on October 26 and 27.

Comoros Islands, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles will participate from the Cosafa region, while the three French-speaking countries from the Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa), Burundi, Djibouti and Rwanda, will also be in attendance.

Cosafa has also invited the other Zonal Unions within the Confederation of African Football (CAF), while CAF Executive Committee member Adoum Djibrine will attend.

“This workshop is an “exposure” of the problem of match-fixing to the associations and law enforcement from these countries with discussion on how each of the associations, in conjunction with local law enforcement and governments, can work to combat this disease,” said Patel.