The clash between Inter Miami, home to star Lionel Messi, and Al Ahly from Egypt, marks the opening of the first Club World Cup. The match takes place this Saturday (14), while the final will take place in New York on July 13.
Thinking about the integrity of the competition, FIFA created a Task Force to prevent any irregularities or attempts at manipulation throughout the 63 duels played in the United States.
Among the organizations invited to participate in this mission is Sportradar, a global leader in monitoring data and betting markets across different sports. To learn more about this important partnership with the world’s top football authority and the verification mechanisms used in other sports, we exclusively interviewed Andreas Krannich (Executive Vice President of Integrity and Regulatory Services at Sportradar).
According to him, the company is deploying its most advanced technology in the club tournament. “Sportradar is deploying our most advanced integrity technologies, centered around the UFDS-AI system. This sophisticated solution makes live predictions once per minute for each monitored match, analyzing more than 100 data points per prediction and processing up to 3,500 match-level changes per second.”
Furthermore, Krannich stressed that this dynamic serves as a valuable test for the 2026 World Cup, allowing the company to refine its methodologies for protecting sports integrity for the biggest global event in football.
“The lessons learned and technological refinements made during this tournament will directly influence our approach to the FIFA World Cup, ensuring we are prepared for the unprecedented betting volumes and global attention the tournament will generate.”
The executive also explained how Sportradar works to ensure integrity in another rapidly expanding sports segment that recently received the green light from Brazilian authorities to accept bets: eSports.
“Our work in this area involves close collaboration with game publishers and tournament organizers, where we provide critical support through monitoring betting patterns and fact-finding, while respecting that the overall investigation strategy and final decisions remain with the publishers and tournament organizers,” he said.
The 2025 FIFA World Cup
FIFA’s new club competition promises to mobilize millions of fans with the participation of the world’s top teams, gathered in the United States for the inaugural edition.
This first World Cup includes the most successful clubs from each of the six international confederations: AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), Concacaf (North and Central America and the Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania) and UEFA (Europe).
The grand final will be played at MetLife Stadium in New York New Jersey.
Check out the interview with Andreas Krannich, Vice President of Integrity and Regulatory Services at Sportradar:
iGaming Brazil: Sportradar works with entities around the world to monitor and prevent match-fixing in different sports. How does this process work?
Andreas Krannich: Sportradar Integrity Services works with hundreds of sports federations around the world through a comprehensive approach that focuses on both detection, prevention and action.
Our core monitoring tool is the Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS), a market-leading, AI-based betting monitoring system approved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). This proprietary technology continuously analyses betting patterns across hundreds of global betting operators, including account-level betting data.
The process works through a number of complementary channels. Firstly, our qualified integrity experts monitor competitions in real-time via the AI-powered UFDS to identify suspicious betting patterns. When irregularities are detected, we provide detailed reports of suspicious matches to our partners. Our intelligence unit then conducts complex end-to-end investigations into teams and individuals of interest.
In addition, we have created the Sportradar Integrity Exchange, which enables a global network of over 120 operators in over 50 countries to immediately report suspicious activity, creating the largest network of its kind in the world. This multi-faceted approach allows us to detect manipulation attempts across 12 different sports and 95 countries, demonstrating the truly global nature of our integrity protection efforts.
In prevention, we place significant emphasis on Integrity Education services across all sports categories. These programs are essential in preventing match-fixing by educating players, referees and officials on how illicit approaches are made, the legal consequences of match-fixing and the appropriate protocols for reporting suspicious contacts.
We also conduct detailed risk assessments prior to competitions and provide due diligence checks to help partners understand potential integrity threats. Our prevention work includes helping organizations establish robust integrity arrangements, such as comprehensive rules and regulations, codes of conduct and secure reporting channels.
iGaming Brazil: We are approaching the FIFA Club World Cup and we recently had the Champions League final. During these big sporting moments, is there a different approach in terms of integrity and monitoring of the betting market, due to the global visibility and high betting volume?
Andreas Krannich: Our fundamental approach to integrity monitoring does not change for major events such as the FIFA Club World Cup and the Champions League final – we apply the same rigorous standards and methodologies that have proven effective across all competitions. What changes is the level of scrutiny and the scale of the data processed. These events generate significantly higher betting volumes and offer a wider range of betting markets, creating a more complex monitoring environment.
This is exactly where our AI-based UFDS system proves its worth. The technology is specifically designed to handle extreme volumes of betting data while maintaining detection accuracy by analyzing betting patterns across hundreds of global operators in real time. Our advanced AI algorithms can identify subtle anomalies in these increasing volumes of bets that could indicate manipulation attempts, even when they are deliberately spread across multiple markets or operators to avoid detection.
The system’s sophisticated account-level analytics and monitoring capabilities ensure that despite the exponential increase in betting activity around these relevant events, suspicious patterns remain as detectable as they would be in any other competition. This consistent approach, powered by scalable AI technology, ensures that integrity standards remain uniformly high, regardless of the event profile or betting volume.
iGaming Brazil: FIFA has announced an Integrity Task Force that will debut at the Club World Cup, with Sportradar as one of the partners. How will this cooperation work with entities such as the FBI and Interpol, especially when it comes to detecting suspicious betting activity in real time?
Andreas Krannich: The FIFA Integrity Task Force represents a collaborative effort between FIFA and key international integrity stakeholders, specifically set up to monitor and protect FIFA competitions against match manipulation and address all integrity-related issues. Sportradar is proud to be part of this task force alongside such prestigious organisations.
Specifically for the FIFA Club World Cup, our cooperation will encompass real-time monitoring of betting markets and events during all matches of the tournament. Sportradar’s role involves deploying our UFDS system to provide comprehensive monitoring of global betting markets, with our analysts immediately flagging any suspicious betting patterns to the task force. This information sharing is crucial to enable rapid responses to potential integrity threats.
The task force already met in Miami in May this year to finalize strategies for upcoming FIFA tournaments, review integrity scenarios, evaluate communication methods and strengthen collaboration between members. This preparation ensures that we have clear protocols in place for the Club World Cup.
By bringing together law enforcement, international organisations, betting monitoring bodies and sports governance under one coordinated framework, the taskforce creates an unprecedented unified front against match-fixing attempts, addressing the jurisdictional challenges that have historically complicated cross-border integrity investigations.
iGaming Brazil: What specific technologies is Sportradar using to prevent potential manipulation during the Club World Cup? Could this tournament serve as a test for next year’s World Cup?
Andreas Krannich: For the Club World Cup, Sportradar is deploying our most advanced integrity technologies, centered around the UFDS-AI system. This sophisticated solution makes live predictions once per minute for each monitored match, analyzing more than 100 data points per prediction and processing up to 3,500 match-level changes per session.egundo.
Three key technology components will be particularly crucial: advanced time-series analytics that detects suspicious changes in betting patterns in real-time, sophisticated account-level monitoring that identifies coordinated activity across multiple platforms, and transparent AI visualization that clearly illustrates which specific data points contribute to suspicious scores.
This approach serves as a valuable testbed for next year’s FIFA World Cup, allowing us to refine our methodologies for the sport’s premier global event. The FIFA Club World Cup provides an ideal proving ground due to its international nature and high profile; yet its scale is more manageable compared to the FIFA World Cup.
The lessons learned and technological refinements made during this tournament will directly influence our approach to the FIFA World Cup, ensuring we are prepared for the unprecedented betting volumes and global attention the tournament will generate.
iGaming Brazil: Considering the recent authorization for eSports betting in Brazil — such as Counter-Strike, Valorant and Fortnite — how does Sportradar approach the monitoring and integrity of these competitions, given the unique characteristics and dynamics of eSports?
Andreas Krannich: Esports presents unique integrity challenges that require specialized approaches. Sportradar has developed tailored monitoring solutions that take into account the decentralized nature of esports competitions, their distinct formats and the different demographics seen in different games. Our esports integrity work combines our proven UFDS technology with specific adaptations for the fast-paced and micromarket-heavy nature of esports betting.
We have developed specialized risk profiles for different eSports titles, recognizing that manipulation methods vary significantly between games. This ensures that our detection thresholds are calibrated to the unique characteristics of each game.
Our work in this area involves close collaboration with game publishers and tournament organisers, where we provide critical support through monitoring betting patterns and fact-finding, whilst respecting that the overall investigation strategy and final decisions remain with the publishers and tournament organisers.
A recent example of our approach in action was our work with Riot Games in the Asia-Pacific region. Our mechanisms detected highly suspicious betting activity ahead of a League of Legends 2024 Oceania Circuit Playoffs match.
After identifying these betting anomalies, we supported Riot Games’ investigation by providing betting analysis and conducting investigative interviews with individuals of interest. This collaborative approach led Riot Games to find a player who violated Riot Games’ Global Esports Code of Conduct, resulting in appropriate sanctions under its governance structure.
As esports betting expands into regulated markets such as Brazil, this partnership model between Sportradar’s specialist monitoring technology and the governance structures of game publishers offers comprehensive protection against the unique threats to integrity that this rapidly growing sector faces. Our role is to provide the technical expertise in betting pattern analysis and investigative support, whilst working within the established governance structures of each esports ecosystem.
iGaming Brazil: In Brazil, what initiatives has Sportradar implemented in partnership with the CBF and state federations to promote sports integrity? Could you highlight any recent examples?
Andreas Krannich: Sportradar has established a robust and multi-faceted integrity framework in Brazil through long-term collaborations with the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), state federations and government entities. These efforts combine advanced monitoring systems, strategic partnerships and educational initiatives to strengthen the country’s defense against match-fixing.
In April 2025, Sportradar and CBF renewed their exclusive integrity partnership, expanding coverage to more than 8,200 men’s and women’s matches per season across all national competitions. This is the most comprehensive integrity monitoring ever implemented in Brazilian football.
According to Integrity in Action’s Global Trends and Analysis 2024, this work contributed to a 48% reduction in suspicious matches in Brazil compared to the previous year. The partnership complements FIFA’s monitoring and will bring integrity oversight to more than 10,000 matches in Brazil in the 2025 season.
In addition to the national level, Sportradar has entered into partnerships with 17 state football federations, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Goiás and the Brazilian Volleyball Confederation (CBV). These collaborations support integrity monitoring at a regional level and raise awareness through Integrity Workshops aimed at athletes, referees and club staff.
Sportradar has been strengthening its cooperation with the Brazilian government through important institutional agreements. In October 2024, a Technical Cooperation Agreement was signed with the Ministry of Treasury, followed by a second agreement with the Ministry of Sports in May 2025. These partnerships aim to enhance efforts in the prevention and investigation of match-fixing, including data sharing and training of public officials.
The first joint workshop, held on 15 May, brought together the two ministries, reflecting a coordinated government effort to build capacity and promote international best practices. While there is still much work to be done, we are moving in the right direction. The past year alone has demonstrated significant progress, proving that collaboration, transparency and long-term commitment can yield real results in the fight for sports integrity.
