The Senate Sports Committee held a public hearing this Wednesday (20) to discuss the manipulation of results in Brazilian football. Among the guests, the highlight was the special advisor to the Ministry of Finance, José Francisco Manssur, responsible for carrying out the work to regulate sports betting.
In his presentation, virtual due to being in Spain attending SBC Summit Barcelona, Manssur commented that the whole world is watching what Brazil is doing in relation to the regulation of sports betting. “I'm in Barcelona, where the global iGaming and sports betting industry is being discussed. I participated in a round table about Brazil that had something like four or five times more audience than all the others.”
Once again, he said that the government is seeking the best international practices regarding the regulation of sports betting. “With this, we will face all negative externalities, such as match-fixing, money laundering, gambling addiction and abusive advertising,” he said.
According to Manssur, especially the manipulation of results needs to be combatted in every way and the project that regulates sports betting consistently addresses the issue.
“Furthermore, we are very attentive to the issue of the risks of gambling and the government wants to send the message that the activity is leisure and not a mechanism to get rich,” he commented.
According to Manssur, the Ministry of Finance, in partnership with the Ministry of Sports and Justice, as well as representatives of bookmakers and bettors, has been working on measures to address both the issue of manipulation of results and other externalities.
In his speech, he made it clear that the future Betting Secretariat will be constituted within the structure of the Ministry of Finance and that, to take all the necessary actions for the future regulated market, “we have to invest a lot and that is why we are going to charge an expensive grant.”
“We are going to tax companies and we have the obligation to establish, from January of next year, a system through which operators pay taxes and the grant, so that we have technological and physical means to act.”
Sport Ministery
Juliana Picole Agatte, executive secretary of the Ministry of Sports, highlighted the importance of the government actively addressing the manipulation of results through the regulation of sports betting, “after it has been stopped for almost five years.”
According to her, match-fixing and the regulation of sports betting “is a stance that deserves to be highlighted because it is a political and technical decision in defense of sport.”
At the public hearing, Juliana defended the creation of a regulatory agency in defense of the integrity of sport as a way of expanding discussions and combating result manipulation.
Source: GMB
