The acting president of the Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD), Felipe Bevilacqua, determined this Tuesday, 1, the preventive suspension of 12 athletes on suspicion of match-fixing in Brazilian football.
Athletes will be out of action for 30 days until the case is judged by the STJD.
The STJD Prosecutor’s complaint was based on the evidence collected by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Goiás in the Maximum Penalty Operation .
All became defendants in the Justice of Goiás.
The acting president of the STJD justifies the decision by claiming that “the violations and damage to sport, their repercussions, are serious enough to justify the exceptional measure of preventive suspension of the accused”.
List of athletes suspended by the STJD
- Bryan Jahir García Realpe (“Bryan”), professional athlete whose last club in Brazil was Athletico Paranaense-PR;
- Diego Porfírio da Silva (“Diego”), athlete from Desportivo Aliança-AL;
- Alef Mangueira Severino Pereira (“Alef Manga”), athlete from Coritiba-PR;
- Vitor Mendes Alves (“Vitor Mendes”), athlete from Atlético Mineiro-MG;
- Sávio António Alves (“Sávio Alves”), professional athlete whose last club in Brazil was Goiás-GO;
- Pedro Henrique Azevedo Pereira (“Pedrinho”), professional athlete whose last club in Brazil was Athletico Paranaense-PR;
- Sidcley Ferreira Pereira (“Sidcley”), professional athlete whose last club in Brazil was Cuiabá-MT;
- Thonny Anderson da Silva Carvalho (“Thonny Anderson”), ABC-RN athlete;
- Jesús Emiliano Trindade Flores (“Jesús”), professional athlete whose last club in Brazil was Coritiba-PR;
- Adailson Freire Pereira da Silva (“Dadá Belmonte”), athlete from América-MG;
- Severino de Ramos Clementino da Silva (Nino Paraíba), athlete from Paysandu-PA;
- Igor Aquino da Silva (“Igor Cárius”), Sport-PE athlete.
Maximum Penalty Operation and the match-fixing scandal
In recent months, the sports press has been taken over by allegations of involvement of athletes in match-fixing schemes for state championship games and Series A and B 2022, to favor bettors.
These complaints are the result of an operation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Goiás (MP-GO) called Maximum Penalty.
For PM-GO, clubs and bookmakers are identified as victims of the scheme.
Criminals enticed professional players to perform certain actions at specific times in games, such as committing penalties or receiving yellow or red cards in exchange for financial rewards.
These payments ranged from R$30,000 to R$150,000.
The MP-GO investigation emerged in February, based on a complaint made by the president of Vila Nova, Hugo Jorge Bravo.
So far, some players have already been punished by the STJD with penalties that may include fines, removals and banishments from the sport.