India signs up with FIFA's subsidiary EWS to check corruption in ISL

NEW DELHI: All India Football Federation has signed up with FIFA's subsidiary, Early Warning System ( EWS), to ensure that the Indian Super League and other domestic and international matches in the country are corruption free.

EWS and AIFF have signed a monitoring service agreement to protect the integrity of football. The agreement covers all matches of India's professional football league (I-League) and the ongoing ISL for the season 2014/2015.

The subsidiary will work together with the AIFF to tackle the threat to the integrity of football in the region by assisting the AIFF with EWS's services, know-how and technical facilities.

EWS will monitor betting markets on irregularities and analyse specific match situation in its sporting context. If EWS's analysis indicates strong grounds for suspecting match fixing, EWS will alert the AIFF.

"This is an important step that showcases the fundamental role of EWS in safeguarding the integrity of the game and that we have a strong partner with AIFF in the global fight against match manipulation," said FIFA's Director of Security, Ralf Mutschke.

As an ethical project, EWS forms an integral component of FIFA's integrity initiative and supports AIFF first and foremost in the areas of prevention, risk management and information gathering.

EWS was founded by FIFA in 2005 with the aim to safeguard the integrity of football through prevention and early detection. The strategy of EWS includes trustful cooperation with national and international sports betting organisations as well as with public regulating authorities.

Furthermore, EWS maintains its own technical monitoring system that enables the EWS specialists to monitor odds movements with hundreds of bookmakers worldwide and to detect irregularities in this context. Informal contacts within the Global sport betting market complement the monitoring activities.