Brazil Congress Launches Probe into Soccer Match-Fixing Allegations

The country’s lower house of Congress confirmed on Wednesday that it had launched an investigation into the spreading match-fixing scandal that could have broader implications for the South American region, and it has already impacted Major League Soccer, the topflight league in the United States.

Congressional Probe Seeks to Crack Down on Sports Corruption in Brazil

The scandal, as outlined last week, has to do with players getting booked – this is receiving red and yellow cards – purposefully to ensure that certain sports wagering outcomes happened.  The state of Goias has been named as one of the main states where the offenses took place with both federal policy and the district attorney’s office in the state now involved.

The inquiry is set to last 120 days and it will involve 34 lawmakers. According to investigators, players were offered between $10,000 and $20,000 to perform certain actions as part of games, such as receiving yellow cards or helping the opponents get penalty kicks. Congressman Felipe Carreras said that the probe would now seek to do away with corruption in Brazilian soccer.

We don’t know whether a given yellow card, a red card or a penalty was supposed to happen or not,” Carreras lamented. The Congressional investigation does not mean that Brazil has not been trying to tackle the issue before. In fact, an investigation was opened in November looking into specific games.

Corruption at Home Exported Abroad

The organizers of these offenses in Brazil are said to have communicated with contacts and counterparts in multiple countries, including the United States, Greece, and Lithuania. Meanwhile, the investigation that began last year, and named 16 people who are said to have been involved in various match-fixing offenses, has finally seen all of the defendants suspended from professional soccer for the time being.

The decision was made by Brazil’s sports court, and the players themselves were part of the country’s first and second divisions, pointing to widespread corruption in soccer. Despite the international repercussions of the case, Brazil is confident that it would not suffer greater penalties in terms of being excluded from the sport. However, it would need to clean up its act.