Gavin: Betting scams have not taken root in Ireland

Airtricity League director Fran Gavin says that while it would be “naive” to think Irish football couldn’t become a target for match-fixing, he is confident that, thus far, the problem has not taken root in this country.

Gavin says that, in recent years, just two League of Ireland games were subject to pre-match interventions by the FAI following reports of irregular betting patterns and, in both cases, there was subsequently no evidence in the games themselves to suggest anything was amiss.

In his role as Integrity Officer with the FAI, Gavin recently attended a Fifa/Uefa conference in Rome at which the issue of match-fixing was discussed by football officials, Europol, state bodies and betting companies.