FIFA confirms betting influenced J.O Lamptey’s biased officiating against Senegal

FIFA says the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) upheld the decision of its Disciplinary Committee to hand a lifetime to J.O Lamptey because they found out his wrong refereeing decision was motivated by betting syndicate.

FIFA’s judicial bodies had banned Mr Lamptey for life for breaching art. 69 par 1 (unlawfully influencing match results) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™ qualifying match between South Africa and Senegal on 12 November 2016.

In its ruling, CAS concluded that Mr Lamptey had intentionally taken two wrong decisions with the sole purpose of enabling a specific number of goals to be scored that would make pertinent bets successful. CAS concluded that there was an obvious link between these intentionally wrong decisions and a deviation from an expected betting pattern and consequently found Mr Lamptey guilty of having unlawfully influenced the result of the match.

This CAS decision underlines FIFA’s commitment to protecting the integrity of football and its zero-tolerance policy on match manipulation, while also highlighting the effectiveness of its current agreement with Sportradar that uses their Fraud Detection System, which played an important role in this case.