The growing concern has even placed the issue on the 2020+5 Agenda of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In the presentation by Lenny Abbey, the entity's engagement leader, at the COB Congress in March, safe and clean sport was one of the 15 recommendations for the future.
The numbers support the importance given to the subject. The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) reported 236 suspicious betting cases to authorities in 2021. Over the past five years, the organization has issued 1,222 alerts across 19 sports in 101 countries. Tennis and football lead, mainly, in minor leagues with matches of minor relevance and little broadcasts.
Last year, for example, Russian tennis player Yana Sizikova, 26, was even detained for one day in Paris for corruption and fraud. The world number 999 is suspected of deliberately missing a doubles match at the 2020 Roland Garros tournament.
In 2020, more than 200 sites received bets for what would be a friendly game between Andraus from Paraná and Serrano from Paraíba, which never happened. Sportradar analyzed the betting patterns of 903 suspicious matches in 2021. The estimated profit from these events was €165 million.
"According to Sportradar, football matches manipulated were around 42 in 2019 and 2020. The number jumped to 88 cases in 2021. Gangs are specialized, but have not been identified. Investigations and sanctions in this area are still very timid, hence the need for cooperation work and an effective program of integrity in sports organizations," says Paulo Schmitt, attorney general of the Anti-Doping Sports Justice.
Schmitt points out that the best way is education and awareness at the grassroots to avoid grooming young athletes: "The best results to prevent manipulation are in the pillars of legislative adequacy, education, reporting channels and intelligence and cooperation actions. If you don't have this, the process is reversed and the monitoring will indicate the game has already been manipulated. It is a crime that pays, it does not involve violence and the gangs are investing a lot in it for money laundering.”
The São Paulo Football Federation (FPF) is one of the few entities already working to combat fraud, with case identification, referral to police and judicial authorities, in addition to penalties by the sports court.
The COB, under the supervision of the IOC, began to implement preventive measures, such as training Team Brasil athletes and including the matter in the entity's complaints channel. It is also planned to establish a Fair Play Defense Committee and a national platform for cooperation between intelligence agencies and sports authorities to be integrated with various entities involved.
Internationally, the creation of a global platform for cooperation between governments, sports entities and operators for the regulation and monitoring of betting along the lines of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) is already under discussion. The idea would be to offer real-time alerts to all stakeholders.
"In the United States, for example, the NBA leads the movement with the main leagues to guarantee compensation from betting operators to sports entities: 1% of the total amount bet on their games. And it also asks for the right to restrict betting on the games themselves, because certain types are more susceptible to manipulation than others," explains Pedro Trengrouse, a specialist in sports law.
In Brazil, the legal basis for sports betting is in Law No. 13.756 of December 12, 2018, but the regulation provided for by the Ministry of Finance, whose deadline is December of this year, has not yet taken place. It is important to regulate operators precisely to be able to identify them and monitor possible fraud. Rapporteur of Bill 442/91, which intends to regulate gambling in the country, Felipe Carreras (PSB-PE) is also working on changing the Pelé Law.
He included two changes in the report: sports betting operators must be authorized by the COB, for the Olympic sports, and by the respective confederations, if it is not an Olympic sport, and the COB or the confederations can carry out audits.
"We understand that the allocation of resources to referees of sports modalities makes the system more robust in the face of possible fraud attempts, therefore, we propose a small percentage of the lottery resources for these professionals. I believe it is fundamental and urgent to create an agency to regulate this sector," said the deputy.
Source: O Globo
