International advisory firm Group of Copenhagen has “raised seven notices relating to possible match manipulation from potential betting irregularities identified in the 2026 men’s World Cup,” according to Millar & Whitehead of THE ATHLETIC. The full report has not yet been published, but a summary of its conclusions has been released by the Council of Europe. Sources noted the in-game notices to raise potential irregularities were:
- The red card shown to South Africa MF Themba Zwane in the 84th minute of his side’s tournament-opening game against Mexico.
- Prediction market Polymarket receiving $4.8M on markets “for Spain not to defeat Cape Verde in their group-stage game,” which ended in a goalless draw.
- The “three-and-a-half-minute delay from the video assistant referee (VAR) team to disallow a goal” from Spain F Ferran Torres in its 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia.
Sources noted that the findings also detailed how Polymarket “opened a market on July 2 asking, ‘Will Folarin Balogun play against Belgium?’” -- the same day the USMNT F was shown a red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32. Sources noted that the Group of Copenhagen’s report said that “no other such markets were opened for the other 14 players who were shown a red card during the tournament -- none of whom had bans suspended.” The Group of Copenhagen’s operation was conducted in coordination with FIFA’s Integrity Task Force, which on Tuesday published findings saying “that ‘no suspicious betting activity or indications of match manipulation in connection with any fixture’ had been identified across the entirety of the competition.” On Wednesday, however, the Group of Copenhagen “detailed that seven ‘yellow notices’ were raised within its own monitoring” (THE ATHLETIC, 7/23).
LOOK OUT FOR SCAMMERS: In Boston, Aaron Pressman wrote cybercriminals during the World Cup got “creative to steal from ... fans who just wanted to buy their favorite teams’ merchandise.” In one case, online ads for Adidas’s blue and green World Cup soccer cleats “looked legitimate -- because they were.” But when unsuspecting consumers clicked on the pictured $270 shoes, they “ended up on the sites of criminal hackers instead of the e-commerce stores that placed the ads.” The hackers “infiltrated the websites of the stores and redirected consumers’ clicks to their own look-alike site” then “stole payments for cleats and other merch -- which were obviously never delivered -- and sold consumers’ credit card numbers and personal information on the dark web.” The “crooks not only hacked into the stores, they also hoodwinked web providers to host their fake sites, complete with payment processing and merchant accounts with credit card companies.” The thieves were also “using AI in World Cup scams,” utilizing “basic, free AI chat apps to help craft more convincing fake emails and social media posts and translate their pitches into different languages” (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/22).
