Entity and federations invest in combating manipulation, but the number of suspicious matches grows in Brazil.
The operation of the Public Ministry of Goiás that revealed a match-fixing gang in the 2022 Series B showed the functioning of the investigation institutions and, at the same time, how these schemes are already able to operate even in competitions with greater visibility.
This apparent contradiction symbolizes what combat work has been like: a cat-and-mouse race. At the same time that FIFA, CBF and federations are increasing their efforts, the number of matches with signs of adulteration is also growing.
Straight to the point: The rise of suspicious gaming and combat work in Brazil
*Games in Brazil with suspicious movements on betting sites jumped from 89 in 2021 to 139 in 2022.
*The CBF has a contract with the Sportradar agency, which maps the movements on the sports websites of national and state games and alerts when it finds those that do not comply with the standard.
*Games considered suspicious are forwarded to sports and police investigation bodies.
* Worldwide, matches with suspicious movements jumped from 905 in 2021 to more than a thousand the following year; the numbers refer to 12 sports.
*Only in football, the leap went from 697 (2021) to 776 (2022).
*In Rio, Ferj expanded the filming of games to try to capture abnormal plays; any arbitration member may report bids considered suspicious.
Growth of suspicious games in Brazil was 56% between 2021 and 2022
Sportradar, a worldwide sports betting monitoring agency, identified 139 games under suspicion in Brazil in 2022. In the previous year, there were 89, an increase of 56%. The data was shared with GLOBO by CBF, which has a contract with the company, one of the main ones in this area, with clients such as Conmebol, Uefa and FIFA.
Faced with the growth of a problem that threatens the credibility of the business, Brazilian football is trying to protect itself. The CBF renewed its contract with Sportradar last year. The new bond, until 2025, foresees not only the use of the betting monitoring system in the matches of the entity's competitions as well as the State ones. This year alone, 23 games have already been reported.
Matches are considered suspicious by the agency from the moment an abnormal movement of bets is identified on the sites. It could be the number of corners in the first half, the number of goals, etc. However, this is not enough to point out manipulation. From then on, it is necessary to investigate both sports and criminal bodies.
“Once the CBF receives the reports, there is a standard forwarding procedure for the competent sporting authorities to take appropriate action. Suspicions about games in national competitions are forwarded to the STJD and about state competitions to the respective federations, which send them to their Courts of Sports Justice", says lawyer Pedro Trengrouse, legal advisor for the CBF.
The entity also makes the database generated by this monitoring work available to investigative bodies. In addition, it supports training in the states.
"Sports organizations and governments need to work together. This is a global problem. In meetings with the Ministers of Sport around the world, UNESCO has been discussing the possibility of creating an agency to deal with sports betting, like the World Anti-Doping Agency," adds Trengrouse.
The report sought out the main federations in the country to ask how they deal with the threat of manipulation. Sao Paulo is the only one that works with a different company: StatsPerform, hired last year and which also issues alerts about games with unusual movements.
In Rio, Ferj reported that, in addition to monitoring bets and conducting seminars, it expanded the filming of games to document probable misconduct. It also included in its General Regulations for Competitions a device in which it authorizes any member of the arbitration to report abnormal plays that may be considered suspicious.
Asked if they had already triggered the investigation bodies to denounce evidence of manipulation in any game, only the federation from Rio Grande do Sul reported a number: ten matches. Ferj confirmed to have already done so without going into details. Mineira said it did not have any suspicious games in its State. The Paulista federation did not respond.
Growth of suspected games is greater in Brazil than worldwide
The difficulty of containing the advance of these schemes is not exclusive to Brazil. Sportradar's monitoring identified, worldwide, atypical movements in more than a thousand games in 12 sports last year against 905 in 2021. In football alone, there were 776 suspected cases in 2022 against 697 in the previous year.
It is important to note that the year-to-year growth of games with betting abnormalities was higher in Brazil than in the global scenario. Which suggests the country as a new target for the expansion of the manipulators' area of activity, traditionally more concentrated in Asia. One more sign of how urgent it is to reinforce efforts in the fight.
"Brazil is even more vulnerable due to the lack of regulation in the sports betting sector," recalls Trengrouse.
Source: Rafael Oliveira — Globo
