Defendant for alleged participation in a match-fixing scheme in Series B of the Brazilian Championship in 2022, defender Joseph, spoke out for the first time. The athlete, who is being investigated by the courts, spoke for the first time in an interview with GE.com.
The 28-year-old player claims innocence, claims that he did not take the penalty against Criciúma on purpose and denies having been called to act in any betting scheme and received money to favor someone. “I never received any economic benefit for participating in any gambling scheme,” he told GE.
For the player, the removal and contractual termination defined by Tombense were hasty decisions. In addition, he pointed out that the club did not offer legal assistance while it was still linked to Alvirrubro.
“In relation to Tombense’s removal, I saw it as a hasty attitude adopted by the club to say the least. They don’t know details of the investigation, not least because the process runs in secrecy of justice and, even so, even without me even being indicted, they removed me from all club activities”, he said.
According to GE.com, club president Lane Gaviolle responded that when the case came to light, Joseph informed the club that he already had a lawyer. Still according to the leader, the team from Minas Gerais provided legal assistance and made itself available to the athlete to help him with whatever he needed.
The player is being investigated by the authorities for having taken a penalty in the game against Criciúma, valid for the 38th round of the second division, supposedly due to an agreement with a group that would profit from the action in bookmakers.
“Correct and common move of any match. Those who are into football know that situations in games happen just as the penalty was committed. Just review the shot, it was a shot for the ball in which I was marking my opponent”, explained Joseph.
Understand the case investigated for alleged manipulation of results
The Public Ministry of Goiás is investigating the alleged case of match-fixing in the operation ‘Penalidade Máxima’. The bets were matched and it was necessary that the penalties happen in the first half of the games between Sampaio Corrêa and Londrina and Vila Nova-GO and Sport.
If that happened, the athletes allegedly involved who committed the penalties would receive BRL 150,000 in total, BRL 10,000 just for accepting to be part of the alleged scheme and another BRL 140,000 with the eventual settlement of the bet. The move didn’t work out, because there were no penalties in the first half of the three matches.
