Chris Eaton calls for new regulatory body to restore fans’ faith.
Africa must implement reforms to the game if they want to retain the faith of their fans according to Chris Eaton.
Eaton, a former security chief for FIFA, believes the continent can do much more to combat the problem according to BBC Sport.
He has called for a new governing body to be set up, made up of police from around the continent as well as gambling organisations.
‘Africa needs a substantial, continental reform really’, said Eaton.
‘I think you will find most serious people in sport in Africa today recognise that. There is a need for regulation and oversight of the official and even unofficial bodies that are part of the sporting milieu.’
Eaton made the comments at a conference held by the International Centre for Sport Security. He praised the efforts of the continent’s police believing the problem to lie with the lack of motivation of country’s governments to deal with the problem.
‘It’s a lack of political will. African police are as competent and capable as any police in the world. There is no doubt if they put their will to it and have the funding to it, they can do it.
UEFA and the Asian Football Confederation have recently acknowledged the problem of match-fixing and are beginning to implement steps to tackle the problem but the Eaton believes that African football is shutting its eyes to the problem.
The issue was conspicuously absent from the agenda during a conference by the Confederation of African Football, despite a former South African team assistant recently being jailed for attempting to fix the outcome of a game.
A report recently by Europol revealed that organised gangs had attempted and succeeded to fix hundreds of games around the world in recent years.