Williams to join UEFA and Portugal soccer leaders on summit schedule

EPIC’s Marc Williams will take his place among some notable names on the agenda for the Portugal Football Summit (8-11 October), lining up on the bill with the likes of UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin and Portugal men’s head coach Roberto Martínez.

Williams – who himself was an international soccer player in a Wales U21 squad that also featured star names such as Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey – will join our partners from the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) for their ‘Integrity in Sports Betting’ panel, taking place on the first full day of the conference agenda, Thursday October 9 (3.20pm – 3.50pm).

Hosted on the Galp Stage at the FPF Arena Portugal in Oeiras – part of the Portuguese Football Federation’s national training centre – Williams will discuss the challenges that sport is facing in regards to betting, alongside sharing both his life experience and EPIC’s vision and solutions for the prevention of gambling-related harm and connected integrity issues.

In this panel, moderated by SIGA’s Nuno Perestrelo, Williams will join Bernardo Neves (APAJO) and João Paulo Almeida (Amadora City Hall) to share insights and solutions to safeguard sport and ensure a more transparent and secure ecosystem. They will debate how the growing popularity of sports betting brings significant risks to the integrity of the game, with match-fixing, competition manipulation, and regulatory challenges among the threats under scrutiny that demand strong and coordinated responses.

“EPIC have delivered to a wide range of international sporting audiences this year, as far afield as Brazil, Australia, US, Spain and the Netherlands, so this is a welcome opportunity to engage with a mainly Portuguese audience,” explained Williams, whose career began in the EFL with the now US-owned Wrexham AFC, before injury and addiction issues considerably affected his time in the semi-professional divisions.

“The event will be attended by some highly influential people from professional sport in Portugal and beyond, particularly from elite soccer, so my background in the game hopefully ensures that this message will land, improving general understanding of how problem gambling and sporting integrity issues intertwine.

“It’s great to be working alongside SIGA for this presentation, as we regularly collaborate to ensure that integrity issues are humanised and considered a priority at all levels of sport.

“They can affect so many different areas of importance for sports organizations – performance, reputation, income, recruitment and more – so I urge decision makers to take the time to listen to this conversation and consider how to implement a preventative approach to gambling-related harm and integrity issues, safeguarding the future of the sports we love.”

The prestigious summit is attended by a large selection of individuals with considerable influence in the sporting and political ecosystem, with other speakers during the four-day event including Portugal president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, FIFA’s chief football officer Jill Ellis and multiple Champions League winner turned head coach Paulo Sousa.