CBF was not proactive and scandal could be the biggest in football, says CPI rapporteur – 05/18/2023 – Sport

The CBF (Confederação Brasileira de Futebol) was not proactive in curbing manipulation of the results of football matches and the scandal could be the biggest in the history of sport in the country, he told the Sheet the rapporteur of the CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) on Sports Betting, deputy Felipe Carreras (PSB-PE).

The commission was installed last Wednesday (17) and will initially investigate the possible manipulation of results of football matches. Leader of the largest parliamentary bloc in the Chamber, he was appointed by the chairman of the commission, Deputy Julio Arcoverde (PP-PI), to report to the CPI.

“If you have a technological tool that can observe evidence of manipulation of results, if this company that has international expertise provides this information and you do not have a proactive attitude of trying to give a remedy, we need to understand why it was not done”, stated.

“Because the movements that I followed in the press of the maximum entity of Brazilian football were after the Public Ministry of Goiás”, he added. “But we need to understand this information from when they had it.”

Such as Sheet showed, in February 2022 the CBF extended the contract with Sportradar, an international sports technology company, to monitor bets placed on domestic matches.

The report contacted the company and the confederation to understand why high-value bets on yellow cards, red cards and penalties were not reported. He also questioned whether the confederation had been informed about the detection of any problems.

Sportradar responded that, “due to the confidentiality agreement with the partner entities and companies, specific data on games, leagues and athletes are not disclosed, not least because, if an investigation is opened, the information remains under court secrecy”.

The CBF said it does not comment “on the methodology used by Sportradar”. The confederation suggested that the company be contacted for questioning.

The Maximum Penalty operation, which investigates a group that defrauded sports betting in Brazilian Championship games in the 2022 A and B series and in the 2023 state championships, already had two phases, in February and in April.

In messages exchanged between operators of the scheme obtained by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, citations to more than 50 players were identified. Currently, 15 have already been formally denounced and become defendants.

Investigations are now trying to identify whether there are more members of the alleged gang and also whether there was a crime of money laundering with the amount obtained in manipulated bets.

For the rapporteur, the CBF is one of the actors that should be heard during the work of the commission, which will have 34 members and the same number of substitutes. He also advocates listening to club leaders, state federations and associations that bring together sports betting companies, in addition to the scheme operators themselves.

“We have already heard from several states with a series of information to provide that this goes much further, this goes to many more competitions and is rooted”, he said. According to him, there are also reports of Serie C games in which there would have been result manipulation.

“Imagine an athlete who earns a minimum wage [R$ 1.320]BRL 2,000, BRL 3,000, BRL 5,000, and receives a proposal to [provocar] a sending-off or a penalty and receive BRL 10,000 in a match. Imagine the power of seduction to enter into the criminality that exists for this type of player in competitions that have no visibility, no television broadcast, nothing,” he noted.

The rapporteur assesses that the investigations compromise the credibility of the sport in the country. “I think the crisis already exists. I think it’s the biggest scandal in the history of Brazilian football,” he said. “Saying that we could have something similar to what happened in Italy are questions that only the CPI and the investigations will point out in the end. But Brazilian football is sick.”

In 2006, in Italy, recordings of the then president of Juventus, Luciano Moggi, were released, proving an attempt to choose referees to manipulate results. Other clubs were also involved.

As a result, Juventus had the 2005 and 2006 Italian titles revoked and were relegated to the second division. Another four teams lost points the following year. The president of Juventus has been suspended for five years from football.

At the CPI, Carreras wants the Public Ministry of Goiás to be invited to speak about the case. In addition, he proposes visiting the Ministry of Justice to ask for support from a Federal Police delegate.

“To the minister [da Fazenda, Fernando] Haddad, we are going to ask for speed in the issue of regulating the activity. Ideally, this regulation already exists and the provisional measure or the bill is sent to Congress so that, in the rite of the CPI itself, it is possible to improve the law in the Chamber and in the Senate”, he added.

The government is preparing a proposal to regulate the sector. A first version has already come out of the Ministry of Finance and is now being debated in other folders.

Among the rules planned by the government is to veto the direct or indirect participation in the betting of athletes, managers and any other person who could interfere in the result.

Carreras, finally, said that there may be a game manipulation scheme in other sports. “I think that, in orientation, when we conclude our work at the CPI, we will want to produce a report that points to a new law for general sport, because you have basketball, volleyball… There may be match manipulation in these competitions, in these modalities.”