Fewer Suspicious Football Matches Flagged in 2020, Says Report

A report issued by Stats Perform Integrity and Starlizard Integrity Services reveals that in 2020, 217 football matches were deemed suspicious. This number represents a decrease when compared to 2019. However, the whitepaper acknowledges that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the global sports schedule, resulting in fewer matches being analyzed.

Stats Perform, Starlizard Reveal the Latest Suspicious Betting Trends in Football Report

Stats Perform Integrity together with Starlizard Integrity Services issued the latest, fourth edition of the Suspicious Betting Trends in Global Football report. The report analyzes domestic and international competitions within more than 100 countries globally.

The latest report reveals that it analyzed 61,296 matches during 2020. Those games were played in 112 different countries on six continents. Overall, the analysis concluded that there have been 217 suspicious matches. This number represents only 0.35% of all matches analyzed.

In 2019, when 80,939 matches were analyzed, the report flagged 456 as suspicious. This represents 0.56% of the analyzed matches. In 2018, that number was even higher when 0.73% of the matches analyzed were flagged as suspicious. Now, the result from 2020 marks the third year in a row with a decrease in the percentage of suspicious matches.

“The lower number is in part due to the cancellation of many matches during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is still comparable to the 62,250 matches analyzed two years ago,”

–Suspicious Betting Trends in Global Football Report

The report reveals that the global COVID-19 pandemic last year did impact the number of analyzed matches. This was mainly because many matches were canceled due to the pandemic. With that in mind, the paper reveals that the number of analyzed matches last year is still comparable to the number of matches analyzed two years ago.

The Percentage of Men’s and Women’s Suspicious Matches Decreases

The report reveals that from the 217 matches flagged as suspicious, 48 were friendly matches. While in 2019, the percentage of suspicious friendly matches was 0.67%, last year, it jumped to 1.19%.

On the other hand, the number of suspicious youth matches decreased significantly last year. While in 2017, the number of suspicious youth matches was 62, it decreased to 58 in 2018. Moreover, in 2019 that number shrank to 46, while last year, the number of suspicious youth matches halted at 16.

Similarly, a breakdown by gender for suspicious matches played by women or men showed a decrease as well. In 2018, the percentage of suspicious women’s matches was 0.26%. That number decreased to 0.15% in 2019 and last year it hit rock bottom with 0.03%. If we compare the number of suspicious women’s matches per year we see six matches in 2018, five matches in 2019, and a single match in 2020, according to the report.

When it comes to suspicious men’s matches we do observe yet another decrease. In 2018, the percentage of men’s suspicious matches was 0.62%, while in 2019 it decreased to 0.58%. With that in mind, last year, that percentage decreased significantly to 0.38%.