Last Monday (19) José Francisco Manssur, special advisor to the Ministry of Finance and one of those responsible for sports betting in the government, left his position.
The Special Communications Office of the Ministry of Finance issued an official note about the advisor’s dismissal from the department, but did not say the specific reason for the decision.
Ministry still does not have a person responsible for sports betting
Today, the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, clarified that Centrão did not influence Manssur’s dismissal from the department.
“No, not at all. Manssur was here to format the bets project, which was a process he handled very well. He is a professional of the highest quality, but anyway, upon request, he will face other challenges there. No has nothing to do with it, no,” Haddad told reporters.
Haddad stated that Marcos Pinto, Secretary of Economic Reforms at the Department, will choose Manssur’s replacement, responsible for the project to tax sports betting and online games.
Finally, he highlighted that the Treasury and the Ministry of Sports will share responsibilities to avoid manipulation of results.
“The entire finance issue will remain in the Treasury. The grants will be made here, the Federal Revenue will collect the taxes due”, said the minister.
“The only thing we insist on is that it stays within the scope of the Ministry of Sports. It’s important that it stays there, because we don’t even have the technical competence to do this type of monitoring,” he added.
José Manssur’s career
José Francisco Manssur is a lawyer and has experience in public management, having worked at the Metropolitan Transport Secretariat of the State of São Paulo.
He also participated in the formulation of Law 10,672/2003 and was co-author of Federal Senate Bill 5516/2016, which resulted in the approval of Law 14,193/2021.
Recently, Manssur gave an exclusive interview to the iGaming Brazil portal talking about the new steps in regulating the Brazilian market, as well as the launch of other ordinances.
