Project partners and staff have gathered in Helsinki, Finland for three days PROtect Integrity Plus Red Button meeting. The project, co-financed by the European Union and the private betting operators ESSA, EGBA and RGA, aims to fight against match-fixing by making sure that the professional and elite players in Europe have a secure and trusted App available to report anything suspicious.
The goal of the meeting was to prepare the seven partner player associations (AJFS, GIBA, HPVPA, HSF, RPA, RPI, PROVALE) to adapt and implement the Red Button app in 7 countries and 5 different sport. EU Athletes works closely with JPY and FIFPro, who have first developed the App, in order to ultimately create a first European-wide player unions-led reporting system across sports.
The project will help improve cooperation with player associations and National Platforms and create new synergies at the European and Global level. Prominent guests and experts, including Tiina Kivisaari (Ministry of Educaton and Culture) Harri Syvasalmi and Jouko Ikonen (Finnish Centre for Integrity in Sports), Martn Rostgaard (Anti-doping Denmark, Danish Natonal Platform), Paolo Bertaccini (Italian Government Office for Sport) have participated in the meeting and shared their achievements and experiences related to fight against match-fixing and dealing with the reports.
The new versions of the App are expected to be ready this summer. Subsequently, partner player associations will provide face-to-face integrity education to more than 3000 professional and elite level players and will introduce the new system to them during team visits.
