Dutch authorities to stop actively detecting match fixing

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) is going to stop actively detecting match-fixing. The OM is going to end its collaboration with sports unions in the Strategisch Beraad Matchfixing and wants to use its limited investigating capacity for other means, a spokesperson for the National Public Prosecutor's Office for Financial, Economic and Environmental Offences (FP) confirmed to De Telegraaf.

According to De Telegraaf, the project to stop match-fixing only led to two cases since 2013, when a report from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport was published about the subject. This then led to a national platform to combat the crime.

Match-fixing is a form of game manipulation. A match-fixing case is when a player or team loses on purpose or cheats and uses that to decide the result of the game. Athletes are often given financial compensation for this. They and others who are aware of an agreement made may also gamble with inside information.

Countries like Italy, Germany, and Finland have seen severe cases of match-fixing in the past. This involved situations in which organized groups crime-bribed and threatened players and officials to fix matches.

Two underage men from Lelystad were sentenced to 70 hours of community service in January 2024. They were found guilty of approaching footballers in the Tweede Divisie to lose or draw games in exchange for compensation.

The Dutch football association, the KNVB, found out about the approaches via social media. Players were given 12,500 euros in exchange for losing a game 0-3 or 7,000 euros for a 4-4 draw. The teenagers would then bet on the games via betting sites.

The other case in the Netherlands during this time was the case of Tom Beugelsdijk, the defender who gambled on games in the Dutch top flight at the Eredivisie and the cup competition while playing for ADO Den Haag and Sparta Rotterdam between 2013 and 2021. However, he was never found guilty of match-fixing. But he was suspended for five games because he was gambling on his own games, which is not allowed.