The Council of Europe published a summary of the Group of Copenhagen’s World Cup integrity review before the full report had been released. The review said the monitoring operation raised seven “yellow notices” during the 2026 men’s tournament, and that prediction markets were monitored continuously for the first time at a FIFA World Cup.
That sat alongside a very different conclusion from FIFA’s Integrity Task Force, which said on Tuesday that it had found “no suspicious betting activity or indications of match manipulation in connection with any fixture.” In the group’s four-tier system, yellow marks a slightly increased alert, triggered by several indications of irregularity, including unexplained movements in odds and rumours on social media or from source information.
Christian Kalb, quoted in the report, said the notices could be explained by “atypical behaviours” such as changes in odds or hedging liquidities, and that there are many explanations that are not manipulation. He said the main concern arises when there may be a conflict of interest or potential inside information.
The operation covered all 104 matches in the expanded 48-team tournament. It worked under the Council of Europe’s Macolin Convention, mobilised 14 national platforms from a network of more than 45 members across every continent, and drew on open-source and social-media intelligence focused on betting markets, odds movements and betting offers that were delisted.
One of the notices centred on Polymarket, which opened a market on 2 July asking whether Folarin Balogun would play against Belgium. That was the same day Balogun was sent off against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, before FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee later reversed his ban on 5 July and he was available for the Belgium match.
No similar market was opened for the other 14 players shown red cards during the tournament, and the group sent FIFA a written request for an explanation. The review also pointed to other episodes, including Themba Zwane’s red card in South Africa’s opening match against Mexico and a lengthy VAR review that ended with Ferran Torres’s goal being disallowed in Spain’s 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia.
The report also looked at Spain’s 0-0 draw with Cape Verde. One report said Polymarket took more than £3.5 million in bets on Cape Verde to beat or draw Spain, while another said the platform recorded about $4.8 million on a scenario in which Spain would not win.
The group estimated that $240bn was placed in bets across the World Cup. It said 15 matches were placed under increased surveillance, particularly in the final round of the group stage, and that it analysed 12 major controversies from an integrity-risk perspective.
