Senators demonstrated urgency in installing a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) to investigate allegations of match-fixing in Brazilian football.
At the public hearing of the Sports Commission (CEsp) this Wednesday (20), participants debated the matter vehemently.
Senator Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ) highlighted the crucial importance of the CPI, claiming that online betting, known as bets, may be contributing to these manipulations.
“We collected signatures and we will have the CPI on manipulation in football or Brazilian sports. It is essential, it is important. It shows that the Senate will not fall asleep on this issue.”
The hearing was attended by representatives from the sporting events monitoring company Good Games!, based in France.
Pierre Sallet and Thierry Hassanaly alerted Brazilian authorities about cases of manipulation, however, they stated that they had not received a response.
Thierry Hassanaly, CEO of Good Games!, stated: “We contacted the CBF and the Judiciary last year to address the manipulation indicated by our system. We sent this information by email, but we did not receive a response.”
Pierre Sallet, founder of the company, mentioned: “We have some matches that were concretely manipulated between 2022 and 2023.”
Kajuru announced the development of a project to ban those involved in match-fixing
Senator Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO) announced his intention to present a bill to ban individuals involved in manipulation schemes from sport.
“If we arrive at complete and irrefutable evidence that a player, a referee or an assistant sold himself in a game, committed a penalty or received a red card on purpose, the best sentence would be a ban from football,” said Kajuru.
While senator Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE), president of the meeting, spoke about attempts to manipulate the main Brazilian sport.
“Brazil was the country with the most games suspected of match-fixing in the world in 2022, with 152 sporting events. Of these, 139 correspond to football matches.”
Monitoring Brazilian sport
It is worth noting that the company specializing in match monitoring, Sportradar, has already released a report with data from 2023, highlighting the drop in the number of games suspected of manipulation in Brazil compared to 2022.
In Brazil, Sportradar monitored around 9 thousand matches from 118 different championships, 109 of which were considered suspicious, representing 1.21% of games.
Thus, compared to 2022, there are 44 fewer matches, the lowest number since 2020.
The decrease in suspected cases within the CBF was seen as progress. In comparison, Peru had 38 suspects in 5 championships evaluated, and Argentina, 36 suspects in 30 championships.
“It is important to know the data, mapping the problem and directing measures is part of the solution. It is in this sense that the CBF has been working, with zero tolerance for any type of crime in football”, stated the president of the CBF, Ednaldo Rodrigues.
