Sportradar Launches Social Media Integrity Education Service
Sportradar has launched a new Social Media Integrity Education Service designed to provide a range of tools for athletes and ‘key sports stakeholders’ for use when engaging with the public on social media.
The global supplier of sports data as well as integrity and education solutions, says it aims to tackle challenges to the integrity of sport, which it says can come from a variety of different sources including inappropriate online content and behaviour, the threat of inside information, match-fixing or betting corruption, and doping.
Amongst the first sports organisations to sign up for the new service is the PENNY DEL, Germany’s top ice hockey league, whose players and clubs will attend bespoke webinars and workshops, as well as being provided with tutorials on the integrity risks that can arise when using social media, as well as guidance on how to protect themselves and the reputation of their clubs.
“The integrity and reputational risks which can arise when using social media are far-reaching,” said Andrew Whittingham, Head of Education Integrity Services, Sportradar.
“Not only can failing to act with integrity online put individual users at risk of harm, it can also pose threats to the integrity of teams or clubs, leagues or competitions, or sport as a whole.
“We’re excited to be working closely with PENNY DEL and we commend the robust approach they’re taking to social media integrity education. By combining sessions to educate players, referees and officials simultaneously they are ensuring all participants in ice hockey understand the individual and collective responsibilities they have to maintain the highest integrity standards.”
Gernot Tripcke, General Manager at DEL, added: “We are delighted about the cooperation with Sportradar. The players of the clubs are all active on social media several times a day and naturally want to make their own accounts as professional as possible. The workshops will definitely be helpful in proceeding with the greatest possible security in the social media area. Equally, it’s about anti-manipulation, which has always been extremely important to us as a league.”
Sportradar, an Official Partner at the Sport Industry Awards 2021, supplies integrity services to more than 80 partner sports organisations from over 25 different sports and recently, its Director of Global Operations, Tom Mace, recently told Sport Industry Group that the company had referred 5,300 ‘highly suspicious’ matches to authorities through its Fraud Detection System in the last 15 years. That has contributed to over 400 sports disciplinary sanctions and over 35 criminal sanctions, according to the sports data and intelligence supplier.
