panaji the risk of more matches being fixed during the coronavirus pandemic is realfrom among the over 600000 matches that sportradar monitored across 1000 plus leagues and competitions in 26 different sports last year over 60 per cent were from sports they do not currently monitor formally for a partnerits a global trend said andreas krannich managing director of integrity services for sportradar experts in sporting integrity we are quite shocked its the tip of the iceberg these matches were in sports such as basketball cricket esports and volleyballthats not allin 2020 sportradar detected suspicious activity in three asian countries that has never previously had any indication of matchfixingkrannich said the covid19 pandemic has seen the situation escalate as criminals take advantage of a market that is in need of income at all levelswe have observed that the environment and challenges created by the pandemic has led individuals and entities who direct facilitate or support illicit activities in sports like matchfixing to become more aggressive and diverse in their activitiesthis includes but is not limited to targeting sports where the previous threat of matchfixing was considered very low and making more direct digital approaches to players and athletes said krannichthe alarming rise in matchfixing has prompted sportradar to launch the universal fraud detection system ufds a service that will be provided for free to any sports federation or league worldwidethe ufds will be launched in october and sportradar will speak with sporting bodies across the world so that they can understand the service being offeredwe believe that integrity is fundamental to public confidence in sport and that wrongdoing at any tier of competition affects all levels of sports and its fans ceo carsten koerl said in a statement we are continuing to upscale our technology and operation to handle this considerable undertaking as well as providing it to new partners we have already set about discussing and implementing the ufds with our 70 plus existing fds partnerslast year sportradar redflagged six matches in the goa professional league gpl for suspicious betting patterns indicative of match manipulationthe londonbased company had offered to help the goa football association to investigate matchfixing the gfa however did not act and started its inquiry only after a year the ethics committee summoned 22 players and coaches on saturday as part of its probesuspicions of matches being fixed have continued this season too with the gfa telling its executive committee members and clubs that there are strong indications of matches being fixed andor otherwise manipulated for betting purposes