STJD cancels penalty conversion and postpones Alef Manga’s return to football

The Full Court of the Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD) decided, this Thursday (1), that there will be no conversion of sentences for athletes punished for involvement in a results manipulation scheme in Brazilian football.

The decision postpones the return of striker Alef Manga, from Coritiba, to football. The expectation of the player’s representatives is that a new request for sentence conversion and return to football will be made in April.

Alef Manga was suspended for 360 days from football for receiving a yellow card in the game against América-MG, in the 2022 Brasileirão, in exchange for receiving R$45,000 from bettors. The punishment began on July 31, 2023.

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In January of this year, the Court had accepted the request to convert 50% of the penalty into a fine of R$60,000 and payment of basic food baskets, as per the prerogative provided for in the Brazilian Code of Sports Justice (CBJD).

Therefore, Manga’s expectation was to be able to return to work at Coxa on January 27th. However, the president of the SJTD, José Perdiz, understood that the complexity of the case, as it involved manipulation of results, required deeper analysis.