Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Tashkent: Uzbekistan Professional Football League (UzPFL) Director General Farkhod Magametov spoke of the importance that football administrators and clubs in the Central Asian republic are attaching to sporting integrity and the fight against match manipulation as the AFC's Special Mission Team (SMT) began its inspection visit on Thursday.
The SMT is in Uzbekistan for inspections of the Member Association, the league, and selected clubs chosen on their current standing in the competition.
"The Uzbekistan Football Federation (UFF) and the UzPF have established an expert committee to prevent any match manipulation and we are pleased to see that FIFA and the AFC is guiding the Member Associations in starting sports integrity programmes with the appointment of an MA Sport Integrity Officer," Magametov said during Thursday's meeting at the UFF Headquarters.
"Match fixing is a very serious matter for football business and must be dealt with properly. The Uzbekistan football family supports the idea to fight against match fixing."
Sporting Integrity is a key element in the updated criteria for participation for the next two editions of the AFC Champions League as AFC Head of Delegation Steve Kim explained.
"It is good news that the UzPFL already made a move to establish the system for integrity.
"The AFC has introduced the updated ACL Criteria system for participation in AFC Champions League 2015 and 2016 and it emphasises the importance of technical standard, club licensing and sport integrity.
"The new decision method will go through the three processes for slot allocation decision which are AFC MA Ranking, ACL Criteria for 2015 and 2016, and Club Licensing. Therefore it is important to ensure the on-field performance for the ranking itself and off-field performance for ACL Criteria and Club Licensing system which will help your league/clubs to fully utilize the slots to be allocated."
Magametov mentioned that Uzbekistan has been considerably proactive in the introduction of best practices based on previous SMT visits as they, and other nations throughout the Confederation, strive towards greater development of the game on and off the field.
"We warmly welcome the AFC SMT inspection team. We are very happy to see them in Tashkent again and hope this inspection concludes fruitfully.
"We have received this inspection since 2010 and have observed a lot of improvements not only in Uzbekistan but also in other AFC Champions League participating MAs.
"We hope this inspection helps us to continuously improve and develop Asian professional football, which should be the sound foundation for strong national teams.
"Recently we have completed two new stadium and these are a fantastic addition to our league. We hope we can keep improving the facilities of our clubs."