STJD reduces sentence to two and maintains banning of athlete from Série B

O Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD) returned to focus on the betting scheme in Brazilian football this Thursday.

And, in judgment of the Plenary, it applied suspension of 600 days for a player, reduced the sentence of two and maintained the banishment of Ygor Catatau. All four players defended Sampaio Corrêa last year and were denounced for their alleged involvement in match manipulation in Series B of the Brazilian Championship.

The Plenum judged appeals, from the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense, from Mateusinho (Cuiabá), Ygor Catatau (without a club), Paulo Sérgio (Operário-PR) and André Queixo (Nam Dinh, from Vietnam). The four athletes had already been judged, and some punished, by the 5th Disciplinary Commission of the STJD. The complaint was based on evidence collected by the Public Ministry of Goiás in Operation Maximum Penalty.

The strongest decision of the Plenum happened in the case of Ygor Catatau. The auditors upheld the R$70,000 fine and the banning of the 28-year-old athlete, revealed by Madureira and who has already played for Vasco. The attacker defended Sepahan, from Iran, since the beginning of the year. But he no longer appears in the squad on the club’s website.

The auditors kept the heavy punishment for considering that Catatau would have been the intermediary of the athletes in Sampaio Corrêa in the betting scheme.

In the case of André Luiz, the Pleno extended the sanction initially applied in the first instance. The fine of R$ 50 thousand is now added to a suspension of 600 days. Matheusinho and Paulo Sérgio had their sentences reduced, from 720 days to 600 days, in addition to a fine of R$ 50,000.

“Sports integrity is threatened. The manipulation of results affects the base of sport, therefore, athletes involved in a scheme that violates sporting principles must be severely punished”, stated the rapporteur of the case, Maurício Neves Fonseca. “Manipulation affronts the basic principles of the sport, which is its unpredictability, integrity, “fair play”, in addition to disrespect for opponents and the public.”