Betting Mafia would have Cruzeiro and Atlético, says athlete – 06/20/2023 – Sport

Midfielder Marcos Vinicius Alves Barreira, known as Romário and former player of Vila Nova-GO, said that the leaders of the match-fixing scheme in Brazilian football told him that they had players from Cruzeiro, Atlético-MG and Avai on their roster of athletes who would have accepted payment to corroborate with bets on sites made by the group.

“Cruzeiro, Avai, Santos they came to talk [que também teriam jogadores envolvidos] and at the time, I think, it was Atlético-MG [também]”, he said this Tuesday (20), at the CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) on Sports Betting.

“They didn’t mention the names, only the clubs”, he added, who is currently banned from football, punished for his involvement in the scheme.

According to Romário, he was initially approached to participate in the betting scheme by a clothing salesman of whom he was a customer and who told him that he had already done this with other athletes.

The former player claims that the leaders of the scheme contacted him, but that he denied the proposal to help the group. However, he says, he passed along a colleague’s contact information.

“My mistake was giving them Gabriel Domingo’s number”, completed Romário.

The athlete was banned from football and is a defendant in court, on suspicion of having participated in the scheme that manipulated Brazilian football matches, including Serie A of the Brazilian Championship, in order to profit from betting.

At the end of May, Romário was permanently banned from football by the STJD (Supreme Court of Sports Justice) in a unanimous decision.

The former Vila Nova player is named as a suspect in the first action of Operation Maximum Penalty, by the MP-GO (Public Ministry of Goiás), which investigates match-fixing schemes in Brazilian football.

The 21-year-old athlete will also have to pay a fine of R$ 25,000. The judgment, which was conducted by the 1st Disciplinary Commission of the Court, had Miguel Ângelo Cançado as auditor-rapporteur.

Tried in the same case, Gabriel Domingos, 22, also a former midfielder for Vila Nova, was suspended for 720 days and fined R$15,000. Both players had their contracts broken by the club from Goiás.

The two athletes can still appeal the decision after the publication of the judgment, which should occur this Tuesday (30).

According to Miguel Cançado, as well as sporting punishments, the financial penalties imposed by the STJD are mandatory after becoming final.

“The penalty for the player Romário was greater because, in addition to accepting to participate in the scheme, he tried to involve other athletes, like Gabriel Domingos himself”, the auditor of the 1st Disciplinary Commission of the Court told Folha.

The Maximum Penalty operation began in November 2022, after the Public Ministry was contacted by the president of Vila Nova, who wanted to report one of the cases.

The first phase was triggered in February, and the second in April. It was found that the group that recruited athletes played in state games in 2023 and in the Brazilian Championship in 2022, including in the first division. So far, there is no evidence to indicate that the elite of this year’s nationals were targeted.

The representative of the Goiás team, Hugo Jorge Bravo, said that, upon learning that midfielder Romário had received an offer of R$ 150,000 to commit a penalty in a 2022 Series B match, he began to gather evidence.