International Handball Federation teams up with Sportradar Integrity Services

The International Handball Federation (IHF) has joined forces with Sportradar Integrity Services by forging a multi-year agreement to monitor global handball events.

As part of the arrangement, Sportradar Integrity Services will provide bet monitoring via its Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) for IHF events, including men’s and women’s, World, Junior and Youth World Championships, as well as the IHF Super Globe.

The UFDS is a monitoring system that analyses for betting patterns abnormalities, with suspicious matches subsequently reported to partners.

In 16 years, Sportradar Integrity Services has detected over 6,500 suspicious matches, with more than 750 of these taking place in 2021 alone.

“We recognise the modern-day integrity threats that face global sport, and handball is no exception,” Dr Hassan Moustafa, IHF president said.

“The IHF makes it a top priority to have robust measures in place to help safeguard the integrity of our major events, not just at men’s and women’s senior level, but also at youth and junior level.

Sportradar has a proven track record in the field of sports integrity, and the depth of their bet monitoring capabilities will help to support our overall integrity programme in the years ahead.”

Meanwhile, Andreas Krannich, Sportradar Integrity Services managing director, said: “We are delighted to partner with IHF to help support their integrity programme with our UFDS bet monitoring solution.

“We have witnessed rising integrity issues in handball over the past five years, and so we credit the vigilance shown by IHF in adding to the integrity provisions surrounding their events.”

Last week, FIBA 3×3 basketball teamed up with Sportradar to use UFDS for competitions, including the World Cup, Zone Cups, the World Tour and the Women’s Series, among others, covering more than 2,800 matches each season.