CHICAGO/LONDON– JULY 30, 2019 – Stats Perform, the revolutionary leader in sports AI and data, brought integrity practitioners from across the globe together in London last week for the inaugural Perform Integrity Forum as they explored the threats facing modern sports.
Speakers from Stats Perform, Tennis Integrity Unit, IBM and Starlizard Integrity Services led the sessions with a keynote from Simone Farina, the whistle-blower at the heart of the 2011 Italian football scandal. Simone shared the story of how he was approached by a former teammate and offered €200,000 to fix a match, his sharing of that information with the police and the consequences he and his family faced.
The role of performance data came into sharp focus during one session as Matthieu Lille Palette, senior vice president at Opta discussed the additional layer of transparency Opta data can provide in identifying irregular behaviour in a match. “Through Stats Perform’s Opta data, we have the largest and most granular sports database which offers a new and extra layer of analysis that can bring contextual elements on team and player performance to support integrity studies.”
Intelligence was another key theme for the day with Nick Iliffe, Integrity Intelligence Manager at Stats Perform presenting on the technology Perform Integrity uses to collate integrity related intelligence stored disparately across the organisation into a single location ready for sophisticated analysis. “The technology and systems we are using enables Stats Perform to be a truly intelligence-led organisation, making it possible to identify upcoming integrity threats and put in place prevention, protection and enforcement provisions to mitigate against these risks.”
Jake Marsh, Head of Integrity at Stats Perform commented “Driving true integrity requires a range of tools and processes but real collaboration is at the core of all of these. That’s why bringing together practitioners from across our industry, on occasions such as this, is so critical.”
Perform Integrity became a part of Stats Perform during this month’s press announcement. Perform Integrity provide non-commercialised support and protection to sports governing bodies to help safeguard against a range of threats.