Francesco Baranca: "There was a clear attempt to manipulate the total in the Dnipro-1 vs Dečić match"

Francesco Baranka, chairman of the UAF Ethics and Fair Play Committee, commented on the situation with betting on friendly matches of Ukrainian clubs.

"I have given many interviews to the Italian and Spanish media in which I spoke about friendly matches. Every year, during the pause in the championships in the north and east of Europe, many international friendly matches are played, we are talking about more than 100 matches a day. It's a paradise for match-fixers, and no one worries about checking them.

Over the past 7-8 years, hundreds of matches have been manipulated. Not only players, but also referees have done it. This year alone, three matches were completely manipulated in Turkey and Croatia by referees - with incredible penalties, to the point where teams wanted to leave the field.

Our Ukrainian clubs also participate in regular friendly matches, and most of these matches can be bet on. Last year, we had 5 cases of fixed result matches with Ukrainian teams. In all cases, the Ukrainian clubs were victims and were completely innocent. This year, so far, 62 matches involving Ukrainian clubs have been offered on the global market (unfortunately, on the Russian market as well; it is a separate shame to see how many clubs agree to play with Russian ones).

And out of 62 matches, only one had suspicious signs - the Dnipro-1 vs Dečić Tuzi match. Looking at the odds, it was a clear attempt to manipulate the total. It was absolutely clear that Dnipro-1 was not responsible. We asked Dnipro-1 if they had seen anything suspicious, but they didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

We will continue to monitor all the matches, so if anyone has any strange ideas, they have been warned. It's a really big problem in friendly matches (two days ago there was the first case involving two women's clubs - First Viennese - Academy Pushkash). The clubs are victims twice over: they do not receive any compensation for the stolen data, and they can also be involved in scandals," Baranka said.