CBF defines that racism will be punished in all national competitions

The CBF will insert, this Tuesday, punishments for racism in its General Regulation of Competitions (RGC). The decision was announced during a meeting of the Technical Council of Clubs, at the entity’s headquarters, in Rio de Janeiro.

There will be three types of feathers. The club can receive a fine of around R$ 500,000 (the exact amount will still be published in the RGC), lose control of the field (or play in its own stadium without the presence of fans) and, the most rigorous, loss of points in the competition. Further details will still be released by the CBF.

CBF president Ednaldo Rodrigues decided to lower the rule and change the regulation so that, with that, the agenda would not be voted by the Council of Clubs and reversed. The associations viewed sporting punishments for acts committed by fans with reservations. Most defended the individual punishment of the perpetrator of racist acts.

The CBF General Competition Regulation applies to all championships managed by the entity. Among them are the Brasileirão, the Copa do Brasil and the Supercopa do Brasil. State, the responsibility of local federations, will not be affected.

Further details, such as the amount of the fine and the number of points excluded, will still be released by the CBF itself. Until today, the entity did not foresee punishment for racism in the RGC. Only an excerpt from article 1 of the document says that “the official national competitions of Brazilian football require all players to collaborate in order to prevent unsportsmanlike behavior, as well as violence, doping, corruption, political-religious demonstrations, racism, xenophobia or any other form of discrimination”.

The matter, in fact, had been dealt with exclusively by the Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD). This is because the Brazilian Code of Sports Justice (CBJD) already provides for punishments for cases of this type through article 243-G (“Performing a discriminatory, disdainful or outrageous act, related to prejudice based on ethnic origin, race, sex, color, age , condition of an elderly or disabled person”). The penalties provided are:

• Suspension of five to ten matches, if practiced by an athlete, even if a substitute, coach, doctor or member of the technical commission, and suspension for a period of one hundred and twenty to three hundred and sixty days, if practiced by any other natural person subject to this Code , in addition to a fine of R$ 100.00 (one hundred reais) to R$ 100,000.00 (one hundred thousand reais).
• If the offense provided for in this article is committed simultaneously by a considerable number of people linked to the same sporting entity, this will also be punished with the loss of the number of points attributed to a victory in the competition regulations, regardless of the result of the match, competition or equivalent, and, in the case of recurrence, with the loss of twice the number of points attributed to a victory in the competition regulations, regardless of the result of the match, competition or equivalent; if there is no allocation of points by the regulation of the competition, the sporting entity will be excluded from the competition, tournament or equivalent.

Errata: Initially, this report said that the punishments would be applied gradually, according to the club’s recidivism. This information has been corrected.