The Ministry of Youth and Sports, the National Integrity Platform for Sport, the National Olympic Committee, and the National Anti-Doping Center held a meeting with representatives of UPL and PFL clubs regarding the fight against manipulation in sports.

Representatives from the Ukrainian Football Association (UAF), Premier League clubs, Professional Football League clubs, the Association of Futsal in Ukraine, the Association of Beach Soccer in Ukraine, as well as members of the National Integrity Platform for Sport and the National Anti-Doping Center participated in the meeting.

Photo courtesy of UAF

Welcoming remarks were made by Ukraine's Minister of Youth and Sports, Matviy Bidny, President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine Vadim Gutzeit, and Deputy General Secretary of UAF Vitaliy Danilenko. Additionally, Stefanie Eichenberger, a representative from UEFA, joined the meeting online.

Photo courtesy of UAF

The main topics of discussion included issues related to fixed matches and manipulation of sports competitions at both national and international levels, the activities of the National Integrity Platform for Sport, the state of anti-doping work in Ukrainian football, the Ethics Committee's efforts towards ethics and integrity in sport under UAF, as well as best practices for combating corruption and fixed matches.

Photo courtesy of UAF

Oleksiy Pervezents, Deputy Head of the Inter-Agency Working Group "National Integrity Platform for Sport" and First Vice President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, along with Secretary of the National Platform Nataliya Radchuk, outlined key directions for the platform's work. These directions cover operational information exchange with sports federations and international cooperation within the Network of National Platforms for Sports Integrity (Group of Copenhagen).

Photo courtesy of UAF

An expert from the National Integrity Platform for Sport and member of the Ethics Committee under UAF, Andriy Nekrutov, emphasized the shared responsibility of state bodies, sports federations, clubs, athletes, and betting companies in combating manipulation of competition results.

Furthermore, the Ethics Committee of UAF, led by its head Andriy Davidenko, believes that using monitoring of bets placed at bookmakers is crucial because while manipulation may not always be visible on the field, it almost always leaves a trace in betting patterns.

The monitoring system analyzes various nuances:

1. Betting behavior.

2. Patterns and models.

3. Account data.

4. Some systems (for example, UFDS with integration of gaming operators) receive non-personalized but very important information (whether an account has a history of suspicious activity; whether bets are placed only on one type of outcome or one club; whether there is active betting on markets with high corruption risk).

5. Geography and time.

Therefore, the system analyzes not just the bets and odds but also when, where, and how bets are placed. Based on this, a signal is formed — "suspicious activity." This is not proof of guilt but rather an initial warning that triggers further investigation.

Photo courtesy of UAF

The Ethics and Fair Play Committee of UAF has been studying all available systems, holding meetings with providers, receiving commercial proposals and evaluations over the past year.

The committee uses several channels simultaneously:

• Through FIFA/UEFA divisions — direct access to UFDS data;
• Through partnership of the national platform with IBIA — a direct channel to more than 90 key bookmakers;
• Through the network of national platforms in Europe — fast international information exchange.

Parallelly, representatives of the Committee are studying the market of new technologies and analyzing an ambitious option — creating its own Ukrainian monitoring system with integrated AI.

Photo courtesy of UAF

Finally, the participants agreed that betting monitoring is not about numbers and odds but rather about protecting every honest athlete, coach, referee, and club.

Anastasiya Bilenko, Secretary of the Ethics and Fair Play Committee, presented the main principles of the UAF Code of Ethics as well as examples of disciplinary decisions regarding violations of fair play and ethics principles.

Special attention was given to combating doping in football.

Sergiy Popik, Director of the National Anti-Doping Center, spoke about cooperation between FIFA, UEFA, UAF, and NADC, as well as existing agreements that regulate their joint work in anti-doping.

Also, Yuliya Grechko from FIFPRO presented the mobile app Red Button, which allows professional footballers to anonymously report attempts at bribery or manipulation of match results.