PANJIM: The news of the suspicious betting patterns indicative of match manipulation in six Goa Professional League matches involving seven teams between October 16 and November 19, 2019 is a pointer to the urgent need to protect the integrity of football in the State come what may.
The report stated that, “there was clear and overwhelming betting evidence that the course or result of the match was unduly influenced with a view to gaining betting profits.” Consequently, the urgent need to protect football and the League matches from match manipulation.
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Goa Football Association General Secretary Jovito Lopes stated, “The GFA needs to send a strong message that it is extremely serious about the integrity of football in the State and protecting the competitions for a simple reason: If integrity is jeopardised and the result of a sporting competition is no longer unpredictable, then one may not have any stakeholders attending football. This means that fans won’t go to the stadia. The sport will not be attractive for commercial affiliates and so on.”
“So, this is one of the reasons, obviously, why it is extremely important to do a lot of work in the field of integrity,” he added
Jovito stressed on education and prevention efforts that would be required to be in place to develop and strengthen the Association’s integrity programmes and initiatives that have to be launched immediately side-by-side with the criminal investigation.
“The first step is the appointment of the Integrity Officer who will work with law enforcement authorities, government institutions and other organisations and experts to strengthen the efforts to promote the integrity of football,” Jovito expressed.
The Association will need to send a strong message to the clubs and in turn to all football players on the need to realise the need for fair and honest performances and outcomes, unaffected by illegitimate enhancements or external interests; positive conduct by players, administrators, officials, supporters and other stake holders which enhance the reputation and standing of the championship.
“The issue impacts how fair and safe football is in Goa. One thing is for sure, for football to remain safe, fair and inclusive people and organisations need to have integrity.” He cited giving an example, “When a team filed a police complaint in November that somebody had approached the club for seeking manipulation, the copy of the complaint ought to have been directed to GFA,” said Jovito.
“We have had a team resorting to impersonation in a lower division match and the club admitted in the competition without valid required registration documents and having even paid the annual registration fee for that particular year at the initial registration two years ago,” he explained.
“This is where exactly integrity comes into force.”
“The foundation of football, or for that, any sport, at whatever levels, is built on principles of fairness and respect – win, lose, draw – we need to know that the contest has been honest and people respect the effort and participation of everyone involved,” stated Jovito.
“Integrity issues includes words like honesty, trust, values, ethics, morals, beliefs, respect and fairness. This is on the decline not only in sport, but almost in everyday life. Blame it on the system, partly on the educational system which stresses on rote memory and attaches least importance on character and values formation; lack of overall discipline and also often due to poor or lack of proper supervision by the parents, mostly due to the over-commercialisation aspect,” he said.
“Besides the GFA, the clubs will need to have an Integrity Officer to raise the awareness of the threat with the players and officials.”
“The need to enforce the disciplinary tool for players, coaches, referees and other stakeholders in football is what will be immediately needed for quick implementation. The one club who resorted to quick action to discipline its players for poor performance must be complimented irrespective of the procedure.” concluded Jovito.
