Match-fixing CPI finds criminal pattern in Brazilian football, calls for harsher penalties
The CPI on match-fixing was first established in April 2024, aiming to investigate allegations of manipulation in Brazilian sport after a high-profile case involving Botafogo owner John Textor. Textor claimed to have evidence of São Paulo players being bribed in a top-flight football game.
The CPI’s work will come to a conclusion on Wednesday, when the commission will vote on Romário’s closing report, which called for multiple indictments and suggested three new laws.
Romário claimed to have uncovered a pattern of criminal activity in Brazilian football. He said players on low salaries were being enticed to fix matches, with the promise of lucrative contracts with foreign clubs. Romário said club directors in need of investment were also a target.
Romário’s report will be forwarded to sports integrity agencies within sports betting. It has called for international cooperation, due to the “transnational” nature of match-fixing concerns.
“The current scenario of Brazilian football is at a delicate and worrying moment, in which the integrity of the most popular sport on the planet is being questioned,” Romário said. “An effort is needed to reverse the damage.”
All CPI documents will be shared with the federal police, as well as the federal public prosecutor’s office, to continue the investigations.
Three bills proposed to limit Brazilian match-fixing
Romário’s report proposed three new laws aimed at deterring match-fixing in Brazilian sports.
One called for an increase to the penalty for fraudulent results during a sporting event. It also recommended raising the punishment to a 10-year prison sentence, as well as a fine. The current penalty is a prison sentence of between two and six years.
The bill would define “fraud in the betting market” as a new crime. This would penalise athletes who use private knowledge to gain an advantage in sports betting. It also proposes a criminal offence for disclosing or advertising unrealistic winnings from betting.
Another bill seeks to enforce warnings for bettors which discourage gambling and its harmful effects.
Clamp-down on prop bets to minimise future match-fixing-cases
The third bill calls for prop bets, such as those on yellow cards, to be restricted, as the report stated almost all recent manipulation scandals in Brazil were related to bets on isolated events.
Romário noted prop bets have helped facilitate match-fixing as they generally have little impact on the result of a match.
“The sports legal system also needs to face this new reality and improve its mechanisms to combat manipulation,” Romário explained.
Alongside the three bills, the report also proposed an amendment to Brazil’s constitution, which would make it mandatory for any citizen to appear before a CPI if requested, with the use of police force an option.
The constitutional amendment follows a Supreme Federal Court (STF) ruling which said Deolane Bezerra, an influencer involved in “Operation Integration” on illegal gambling, did not need to testify in front of the CPI despite a request being made.
Romário calls for three indictments
Romário’s report also called for three indictments to be made for match-fixing. Bruno Tolentino was flagged for his involvement in a 2024 match-fixing case.
Tolentino is the uncle of Brazil national team player Lucas Paquetá, who currently plays for English Premier League club West Ham United and is embroiled in a three-week hearing with the Football Association (FA), which sought to ban the midfielder for life over betting rule breaches.
Paquetá was charged in May 2024 for spot-fixing offences in four Premier League games.
Additionally, Romário requested the indictments of local businessmen William Pereira Rogatto and Thiago Chambó Andrade for additional cases of manipulation.
However, the CPI will not indict local businessman Bruno Lopez despite his admitting participation in match-fixing, as a deal was reached with the public prosecutor’s office.
Romário also made a number of recommendations, including urging the ministry of finance to act as a supervisor to enforce advertising rules on gambling, as well as the creation of a self-exclusion scheme for gamblers.
Some criticism of the CPI on Brazilian match-fixing
Senator Eduardo Girão, who has long been an opponent of gambling in Brazil, described Romário’s report as “brilliant”.
However, Girão also cited “omissions on crucial issues” in the CPI’s final report, including the absence of a reference to a report in the magazine Veja. This claimed congressman Felipe Carreras had requested BRL35 million (£4.7 million/€5.6 million/$6.1 million) from the then-National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) president Wesley Cardia to protect betting operators within the national congress.
“The uncomfortable silence on this aspect of the report needs to be reassessed,” Girão said. “It is not good form for us to fail to explore all investigative possibilities.”
In Girão’s view, the report also fails to properly address the appointment of Geovanni Rocco as the ministry of finance’s national secretary of sports betting. Girão claimed Rocco’s pro-gambling views present a conflict of interest within his role.