promising development for European sports integrity, France’s Service Central des Courses et Jeux (SCCJ), has today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with detection and intelligence service provider Sportradar.

The SCCJ is the department within France’s national police force that oversees the country’s racing and betting services, and under the terms of the MoU, both parties will actively exchange expertise, statistical data, information and trends regarding sporting integrity. Moreover, the two parties will now begin exploring projects that they can collaborate on or support each other on.

Philippe Menard, the SCCJ’s Chief said: “Our aim in France is to make sure that we are at the forefront of the fight against match fixers and manipulators. That requires us to identify the most potent allies to help us shore up our defences. Our informal collaborations with Sportradar to date have left us in no doubt that today’s signing is a strong statement of intent and we look forward to working closer with their specialists to safeguard French sport.”

Sportradar Integrity Services Managing Director Andreas Krannich added: “We have already worked closely and fruitfully with Mr Menard and his team in the past, looking at various sporting events held in France and also supporting their efforts around the Uefa Euro 2016 tournament hosted in France. It was clear to me that we could do more in the future and this MoU sets us up to begin identifying other ways for us to share insights and develop investigations. It is so encouraging to see the SCCJ live the spirit of the Macolin Convention and we are honoured that they trust us to support the efforts of the French National Platform going forward.”