Spain’s elite football league, La Liga, is teaming up with cyber security firm Comsec and official data provider SIS to target unofficial data scouts in Spanish football.
The partnership saw a record number of unofficial data scouts ejected from Spanish football grounds during the 2014/15 season.
The work, undertaken with the support of Real Federación Española de Fútbol, resulted in substantial disruption to the activities of unofficial data collectors at La Liga, Liga Adelante and Segunda Division B matches.
Plans are now in place to increase the detection and disruption of unofficial in-stadium data scouts for the forthcoming La Liga season.
Javier Tebas, president of La Liga said: “Protecting the integrity of sport has never been more important. La Liga is committed to taking all necessary measures to eradicate unofficial data collection, ‘court-siding’ and gambling fraud from within our grounds.”
Rachel Coulson, head of business data for SIS, added: “We’re working closely with our partners at La Liga and Comsec to ensure operators continue to have access to the highest possible quality and reliable official data products.
“Operators desire a fast, reliable and robust data stream for Spanish football and unauthorised data collection, apart from not being endorsed by La Liga, is heavily dependent on unofficial in-stadium scouts which can cost operators dearly when it is disrupted.”
