The Group of Copenhagen raised seven yellow notices during its integrity monitoring of the 2026 men’s World Cup, even as FIFA’s Integrity Task Force said it found no suspicious betting activity or signs of match manipulation across the tournament.
The review covered the World Cup’s 104 matches, the first edition with 48 teams. At the time The Athletic reported on the findings, the full document had not yet been published, but the Council of Europe had released a summary. The operation was carried out alongside FIFA’s Integrity Task Force, and the Council of Europe said 14 national platforms from a network of more than 45 members across every continent were mobilised to identify and assess risks.
Those platforms focused on betting markets, odds movements and the delisting of betting offers using OSINT and SOCMINT. The Group of Copenhagen also said it placed 15 matches under increased surveillance and analysed 12 major controversies in light of integrity risks.
The group’s alerts are colour-coded. Yellow is used when there are several different indications of irregularities, while the system also includes green for normal, orange for increased alert and red for the highest alert. The indicators can include unexplained fluctuations in odds, rumours on social media or source information.
The group estimated that about $240 billion was wagered across the tournament, roughly twice the amount from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. It said the scale of betting made broad extrapolations difficult, because each match represented very large sums.
For the first time, the group also conducted continuous monitoring of prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi. The Council of Europe said that was a first for the group during a major international sporting event.
The clearest example involved Folarin Balogun. In the summary reviewed by The Athletic, Polymarket opened a market on 2 July asking whether the United States forward would play against Belgium, the same day he was sent off against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last-32 stage. FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee then confirmed on 5 July that Balogun would be available after his ban was suspended.
The summary said no similar market was opened for the other 14 players who were shown red cards during the tournament, none of whom had bans suspended. The group also said it had sent FIFA an official request for a written explanation about the Balogun case.
A separate report from TimesLIVE said Themba Zwane’s red card in South Africa’s opening defeat to Mexico on 11 June was among the seven yellow notices flagged by the group.
The notices themselves do not amount to proof of fixing. Christian Kalb told The Athletic that such alerts can reflect atypical behaviour, including changes in odds or hedging liquidity, rather than manipulation. He said the bigger concern is when potential conflicts of interest or inside information are involved.
FIFA said its task force centralised betting-monitoring reports and other relevant data during the tournament, analysed the information with its members and concluded operations after monitoring betting markets and on-field activity in real time across all 104 matches. The federation said it would continue working with the task force on future tournaments, including youth competitions later this year and the Women’s World Cup in 2027.
