UEFA President Michel Platini wants to establish a European sports police force to tackle betting, corruption, match-fixing, doping and hooliganism.
Addressing the UEFA Congress in London on Friday, Platini said that his previous calls have been ignored by governments for six years.
“Given the absence of any reaction and the lack of awareness on the part of politicians, I renew that call today,” Platini said. “And if, by misfortune, this call again falls on deaf ears, I ask that each country, at the very least, adopts specific provisions of national legislation addressing the issue of match-fixing, in order to finally have the legal tools necessary to rigorously punish these cheats.”
Only 10 nations have such provisions, Platini said.
Europol, the European Union police liaison agency, said in February that it reviewed 680 suspicious recent cases of match-fixing.
Platini said that manipulating matches “strikes at the soul of our sport, the very essence of the game.”
“We are not dealing with petty criminals who are looking to make ends meet,” he added. “It would seem that we are, in some instances, dealing with mafia-type organisations that are using certain matches to launder money, tarnishing our sport in the process.”
