A panel during the Sports Summit São Paulo this Thursday (27) discussed the fight against match fixing. Guilherme Buso, senior manager of LatAm business development at Genius Sports, exchanged experiences with Sérgio Domenici, CEO of Brazil’s National Basketball League (LNB), being moderated by Erich Beting, CEO and founder of Máquina do Esporte.
“Although the event as a whole was more focused on sports organizations, the latest complaints raised by the ‘Maximum Penalty’ operation, we properly addressed the importance of combating match-fixing and how much the illegal practice harms the image of sports entities and causes damage to bookmakers,” said Buso to GMB.
At the meeting, Buso presented the most modern techniques adopted by the market to detect and combat match-fixing in Brazil and the measures that have been adopted by the sports trade and by the Sports Integrity Defense Association – Abradie to curb the practice.
The CEO of the LNB, Sérgio Domenici, highlighted the entity's concern with sporting integrity in basketball and that any inappropriate practice compromises the image of the sport.
“The concern with sports fairness has always been one of the purposes of the League's management. The monitoring of our games has been carried out for some years in partnership with Genius Sports, which monitors them in order to identify any anomalies. We will seek to integrate pillars such as transparency, cooperation and sharing of information about what happens in our competitions to prepare ourselves for this new reality that has arrived in Brazil, which is sports betting,” commented Domenici.
The official stated that the LNB does not have rules for punishing athletes involved in match-fixing, but that the issue will be discussed within the entity in order to make the championships even more transparent. “Counting on Genius Sports for this is fundamental for us to advance in this very relevant topic,” said Domenici.
“It's a new topic and we're going to look into it. Manipulation can happen in any sport and we are aware of that in the League. Anything that moves away from the sports sphere can be fought in civil justice and in the sports disciplinary sphere,” highlighted the CEO of the LNB.
At the meeting, Buso highlighted the need for all players in the betting sector to participate in discussions on the subject and implement actions that guarantee the transparency of the segment. “The bookmakers are very affected by the manipulation of results and they need to be with us in the debates and in the search for actions to combat the problem,” said Buso.
The Sports Summit São Paulo ended this Thursday (27) and featured panels on current challenges and discussions in the national sports industry, including the regulation of sports betting and the formation of a Brazilian football league.
According to the organizers, the event had partnerships with more than 120 international brands, as well as with more than 45 leagues, federations and competitions.
Source: GMB
