Zona de Azar Brazil – Brazil: Senator Romario Invites Sportradar and Genius to the CPI of Manipulation

Brazil.- June 18, 2024 www.zonadeazar.com Today, Tuesday, June 18, the CPI for Games Manipulation and Sports Betting will hold a meeting with a complete agenda, including topics related to the fight against fraud in the sector.

The highlight of the session will be the testimony of Felippe Marchetti, Integrity Manager of Sportradar, at the invitation of Senator Romário (PL-RJ), rapporteur of the commission.

Sportradar, a Swiss company, is a world leader in data collection and analysis systems for fraud detection in sports betting.

Marchetti’s testimony is considered crucial to clarifying how the company’s technology works. The senators seek to understand how Sportradar monitors football matches in Brazil and makes this information available to customers.

The relevance of Sportradar is evident: it maintains contracts with the CBF and FIFA, monitoring several championships in Brazil. In addition, several sports betting houses are also clients of the company.

According to a report published in March by Sportradar, Brazil leads the world ranking of fraud, with 109 suspicious matches out of a total of 9,000 analyzed.

Another speaker at the meeting will be Thiago Horta Barbosa, head of Integrity for Latin America at Genius Sports.

Romário invited Barbosa with the expectation that he could offer valuable information on vulnerabilities in the fight against fraud in other countries.

Genius Sports, based in England, develops its own technology to detect fraud in sports matches and maintains contracts with several federations in Brazil and Latin America.

At the same meeting, the CPI will vote on several requests, including the invitation to the player Lucas Paquetá, requested by senators Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE) and Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO).

The English Football Association accused Paquetá, a player for West Ham and the Brazilian national team, of betting misconduct. The allegation is that he forced yellow cards in four Premier League matches between November 2022 and August 2023.

Lucas Paquetá was denounced by the English federation

Despite the accusations, Paquetá claims to be innocent and remains focused on competing in the Copa América with the Brazilian team. The president of the CBF, Ednaldo Rodrigues, made important statements about the athlete’s situation before the friendly against the United States.

“When asked by the CBF, the English Federation responded that it had no provision to sanction. For this reason, the CBF understood that he could remain in the Brazilian team without problems,” stated Rodrigues.

Senator Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ) requested the testimonies of former FIFA referee Manoel Serapião Filho and the president of the National Football Referees Association, Salmo Valentim. Both are considered important witnesses to discuss CBF guidelines and the integrity of sports competitions.

However, one of the crucial points will be the vote on the request to break the banking, telephone and telematic secrecy of former referee Glauber do Amaral Cunha.

Portinho attributes Cunha as the voice in an audio where a person complains about non-payment of bribes after refereeing a penalty and fouls to influence the result of a match. The owner of Sociedade Anônima de Futebol (SAF) of Botafogo, John Textor, presented the audio to the CPI.

He edited: @_fonta www.zonadeazar.com