As the football world looks to Rio for the World Cup final, those in charge of the next largest international tournament are focused on a clean event in January.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The head of Australia's Asian Cup preparations is confident everything possible is being done to avoid the off-field scandals - from allegations of match-fixing to million-dollar ticket scalping - which have competed for attention with glorious goals in Brazil.
Asian Cup 2015 organising committee chief executive Michael Brown said authorities would come down hard on anyone manipulating the event.
“I wish I could say I was confident [there would be no attempts], all I can say is I am really comfortable with the processes we have in place, and we have a firm position that [corruption] is a blight on the game and it's not tolerable," Mr Brown said.
"The tolerance level Australian and South Korean players, for example, saw in the World Cup is exactly the same as they’ll see here."
Mr Brown said the Asian Football Confederation, owners of the tournament, required all 46 of its member associations to employ an integrity officer, and a series of related workshops for players and coaches would begin at AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur when team briefings were held in coming months.
The former Cricket Australia general manager said systems were in place to catch suspicious betting patterns, with the AFC using the SportsRadar group to monitor Asian Cup betting globally.
SportsRadar is credited for tipping off police to irregular betting in the Victorian Premier League last year, which led to fines for two English footballers and a three-year prison sentence for the local ringleader of the match-fixing syndicate, a Malaysian national.
Mr Brown said the use of only Ticketek to sell match tickets next year differed from the World Cup, where Brazilian investigations continue into an alleged $95 million ticketing fraud involving the official hospitality partner.
University of Canberra senior lecturer Catherine Ordway, soon to teach a master's performance integrity subject, backed warnings from Canadian investigative journalist Declan Hill - repeated this year - that Australian sport would be hit by a tsunami of corruption from Asia.
"The risk is there and we need to be vigilant, and full credit to the Australian government because they have taken it seriously," the PhD candidate said.
An estimated 80 per cent of global sport betting is illegal, according to a study released in May by the International Centre for Sport Security.
The report said soccer had the leading number of manipulations, with certain championships in Asia found to be almost entirely manipulated.
The Asian Cup begins in 180 days, with Canberra hosting seven games including a quarter-final.