One of the top clubs in the Latvian football league, FC Dinaburg, has been banned for the rest of the season after the club’s President and head coach were found to have placed bets on the outcome of the team’s matches following an investigation by the Latvian Football Federation (LFF) and UEFA.
The LFF board decided to take action against the football club after suspicious betting patterns were highlighted by UEFA’s Betting Fraud Detection System, which has been providing information on betting patterns to its member associations since July of this year.
As a result of FC Dinaburg’s exclusion for the rest of the season, which still has six games to play, the LFF board has awarded 3-0 wins to the remaining opponents of the club. FC Dinaburg was in fourth place in the league before being banned.
The board said that the club’s president, Oleg Gavrilov, and head coach, Tamaza Pertia, will be permanently barred from all football in Latvia.
UEFA has been operating the Betting Fraud Detection System since the start of the current season following a decision by the UEFA Executive Committee late last year to tackle corruption in football.
The system is used to monitor all matches organised by UEFA, as well as games taking place in the top two domestic divisions and cup competitions of its member associations. An estimated 29,000 matches every year are scanned for potentially suspicious betting patterns.