press conference earlier today, the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) in partnership with sports betting data supplier Sportradar outlined its education strategy that will see 32 workshops per season covering referees, BFU officials and all football players from the 1st and 2nd professional leagues along with individual e-learning modules and assessments each year.
As part of this agreement, attendance of the workshops and completion of the e-learning modules and assessments will be mandatory for all players playing at 1st and 2nd professional leagues.
Commenting on the new integrity tour, Borislav Mihaylov, President of the BFU said: “On behalf of the Bulgarian Football Union, I'm very delighted to sign this contract. As President of the BFU, I promise my full support to this initiative. I am in no doubt that I speak for all my collegues in our Federation in this regard.”
BFU Deputy General Secretary Pavel Kolev added: “This agreement means a lot to us. We are taking a step forward, supplementing the monitoring of the games already in place with a powerfuleducational strategy. I believe that organizing workshops all around the country will help us to present our position and so keep the integrity mission growing. This tour is one of our top priorities for the next few months.“
The tour also drew comment from Bulgaria’s Secretary General of the Minister of Sport, Assen Markov who added: “We warmly welcome Sportradar’s educational strategy and congratulate the BFU on their strong stance in the battle against match fixing. I can assure everyone here that the Ministry of Sport will channel its backing to support this initiative.”
Sportradar Group Director Sales Southern Europe, Mr. Alex Gerontikos added: “Any federation that shows this level of commitment will always get our support. We are honoured that the BFU has come to us to devise the ambitious plan of safeguarding and securing sport, its participants and stakeholders against both betting-related match-fixing and corruption. There is a lot of work to do and we are fully committed to deliver!”