Women's Handball League Strengthens Fight Against

New agreement concluded

According to consistent media reports from both players, the new agreement is aimed at several years and is considered a long-term partnership. Among other things, all women's handball matches will be monitored in the future by Sportradar's integrity office, namely with the help of the Universal Fraud Detection System, which goes by the name UFDS for short. The aim of this measure is to prevent and stop match manipulation and to campaign against betting fraud in women's handball.

"The growing popularity of women's sport in recent years is evident, and therefore we must be vigilant to provide it with the same first-class protection as men's sport. Through our UFDS, we will monitor every game for signs of irregularities and provide insights into the global betting popularity of their competitions. In doing so, we will support the Handball Bundesliga Women's integrity program in the coming years." - Andreas Krannich, Sportradar Integrity Services Managing Director, Press release

This is how the UFDS works

Through the UFDS, betting patterns in women's handball Bundesliga competitions are examined for specific anomalies by a global team of integrity experts. If suspicious games are identified, they are then reported to gain insight into the dangers of game manipulation. Over the last 17 years, Sportradar's integrity services have identified more than 7,300 suspicious games. 600 of them took place in 2022 alone. Agreements have already been extended with the men's handball league.

The HBF pursues these goals

The control by the UFDS, which takes place in real time, refers to the games of the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga as well as the HBF Supercup. Of course, the primary aim is to ensure the integrity of the sport, the institutions and clubs involved and to ensure fairness - for everyone who takes part in it or is associated with it. Especially now that the popularity of women's sports is increasing and spectators can be won, this progress should not be jeopardized.

"We are aware of the dangers that match-fixing poses to sport and recognize the important role that betting monitoring can play in combating this risk. By using the UFDS for our competitions, we strengthen our integrity protections and this agreement puts us in a strong position to ensure fair competition at our events in the coming years." – Christoph Wendt, Managing Director of the Handball Bundesliga Women, Press release

Sportradar enters into significant partnerships

Not only the HBF or the HBL can be found among Sportradar's partners. A cooperation was also concluded with the Dutch football association KNVB, which can be described as the local counterpart to the DFB. The NBA is also on the list of exclusive partners that Sportradar has won for its fight against game manipulation and betting fraud. It is part of the global offensive of the integrity service provider from Switzerland.

Sportradar provides data

As was also reported in the course of the cooperation with men's handball, Sportradar makes the data from tournaments and games available to its network of over 900 sports betting providers and at least 350 media companies in 120 countries around the world. Both the organizations and Sportradar also rely on collecting this data on the support of scouts, who collect data on the current game on site and live and actually play a relevant role in handball.

Both sides express satisfaction

Both sides, Sportradar and the HBF, are satisfied with the new agreement and the extension of the cooperation. It's good to see that the players in major sports are taking action, especially taking into account technical means and methods that are still comparatively new. If we are to succeed in preserving and partially restoring the integrity of sport, everyone involved is required. In this case, this was recognized by the contractual partners.

Women's handball league strengthens fight against match-fixing