In April 2016, EU Athletes have submitted an application to the Erasmus+ Sport Programme for a project related to Matchfixing : PROtectIntegrity+.
Last week the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), selected EU Athletes to receive a funding of 204.656€ between January 2018 and December 2019 to implement the action.
This grant will be complementary to the financial support offered by the private betting operator, EGBA, ESSA and RGA who have been co-funders of our education program since 2010.
For Yves KUMMER, President of EU Athletes, it’s a great opportunity to continue working to protect the integrity of sport in Europe:
We have now a long history with the private betting operators, they were the first one to believe that player unions were perfectly placed to implement a European wide prevention and education program directly to players. This new project will focus on whistle-blowing and reporting and will offer to players, in 7 countries and 5 different sports, the new tool to report any forms of approaches.
Over the last couple of years the private betting operators have supported the EU Athletes initiatives and for Khalid ALI, General Secretary of ESSA, it’s a new chapter that is about to start in 2018.
We have been working together with EU Athletes for more than 7 years now and we are really this partnership will continue for at least 2 more years. Integrity of sport is fundamental for private betting operators and we are looking forward to this new project.
The first meeting of PROtectIntegrity+ is scheduled for the last week of January 2018 in Paris, France.