Today we woke up to the news that Brazil is the country with the highest number of matches suspected of match fixing.
The article, published on ge.com, points out that in 2022 alone, 152 suspicious games were identified here, which represents 12% of the global total and exposes once and for all the dramatic situation experienced by Brazilian football.
Just to give you an idea, by way of comparison, the second place in the ranking is Russia, with 92 suspicious matches (60 less than Brazil).
I have been denouncing this problem for years (since the disaster was just announced) and demanding that sports authorities implement serious and effective integrity plans, capable of preventing and repressing this serious problem.
Until today, however, despite some isolated initiatives (several of them with my participation), most sports managers continue to ignore the problem or treat it as something secondary, of lesser importance.
When will they realize that integrity is what makes sport stand out as a commercial product? That is, when will they realize that fighting match-fixing is vital for the survival of the sport?
It's no use discussing league, SAF, sponsorship contracts, broadcast rights contracts and other assets if the product is slowly dying. It is necessary to preserve it above all else. Or will we really let the manipulations continue to prosper and destroy everything little by little?
The fight against result fraud must be treated as a central theme in any discussion involving sport today. This fight must receive the attention and all the necessary investments so that the sport can emerge victorious in the dispute against those who want to earn money without any scruples and at the expense of its credibility.
Tiago Horta Barbosa
Consultant in sport law and integrity. Graduated in International Relations and Law and post-graduated in Management and Sports Law (FIFA/CIES/UCA), as well as a Master in Sports Law from ISDE Madrid. He has served as an auditor for the Anti-Doping Court of Sport Justice since 2020. He is a member of the Ethics Committee of the International Table Tennis Federation and of several national sport ethics and integrity committees. Former Police Officer at INTERPOL (2012 – 2014) and former Director for Business Development and Sport Integrity at Sportradar AG (2016 – 2019). Former attorney at the Superior Court of Sports Justice for Football.
