SPORTS-BRAZIL: Senate Commission Reveals ‘Rot’ in Football

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 6 2001 (IPS) - Seventeen top football officials in Brazil were accused of fraud and corruption by a Senate commission which concluded a 14-month probe and recommended measures to reorganise the way sports are run.

The 1,600-page report presented by Senator Geraldo Althoff, which took 10 hours to read out loud on Tuesday, has yet to be submitted to a vote, probably on Thursday, by the 13 members of the investigative commission.

However, the vote is seen merely as a formality, and after the report is approved, the accusations it sets forth will be forwarded to the Public Ministry (public prosecutor’s office).

The outcome of the investigation is positive because it “revealed the extent of the rot in the reign of football, and created opportunities for Brazilian society to debate and approve reforms” of how football is run in this country, attorney Marcilio Krieger, who specialises in sports law, told IPS.

Although the commission’s denunciations “could be more compelling,” they at least get to the heart of the abuses by asking the Public Ministry to initiate legal proceedings against “the main culprits responsible for the corruption of professional football in Brazil,” said Krieger.

Ricardo Teixeira, the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), was the main target of the Senate commission.

Over more than 500 pages, the report details 27 instances of abuses like the misappropriation of funds, illicit enrichment, illegal transfers of money abroad, and tax evasion allegedly committed by Teixeira.

Senator Althoff pointed out that under Teixeira, the CBF lost 10 million dollars in 2000, which would amount to “bankruptcy if it were a private company.” Despite that fact, he donated CBF funds to the election campaigns of friends.

Teixeira and the directors of the CBF drew salaries, thus violating the confederation’s statutes, which expressly prohibit payment to the organisation’s officials. CBF funds were also allegedly used to pay laywers for services in private cases.

In addition, 540,000 dollars also went missing from a CBF investment fund in the Veja Bank, and 400,000 dollars were sent abroad illegally, via neighbouring Uruguay, apparently used as part of the expenses of the national team during a 1998 tournament in the United States.

Teixeira was also accused of unjustified expenses, like spending 12,500 dollars on 18 meals in the United States in May and June 1998. In addition, he invited Brazilian judges and their wives to the 1998 World Cup in France, where all their expenses were paid by the CBF – including rooms in five-star hotels.

That raises suspicions of bribery, said Krieger, who pointed out that the judges had all handled cases of interest to the CBF.

The report also accuses another 16 top officials of famous clubs like Flamengo and Vasco da Gama, as well as provincial football federations, of corruption, tax evasion, giving false testimony before the Senate commission, and amassing ill-gotten wealth while their clubs fell into debt.

Eurico Miranda, the president of Vasco da Gama, one of the big Rio de Janeiro clubs, is accused of siphoning off at least eight million dollars. He also allegedly failed to report spending on the campaign for his election to the national parliament.

As a parliamentary deputy, Miranda obstructed the work of a Chamber of Deputies commission that failed to come up with results in its October 2000 to June 2001 investigation into irregularities in the contract between the CBF and sportswear giant Nike, sponsor of the national team.

Besides the accusations of corruption and recommendations that the Public Ministry initiate criminal proceedings against the football officials, the Senate commission proposed six bills aimed at restructuring the way sports are run in Brazil and preventing fraud.

A bill on accountability would make officials of football clubs subject to the sentences applied in cases of criminal, civil, labour, tax and financial offences, force them to present the accounts of their administrations, and ban them from the world of sports in case of conviction.

Other proposed bills would regulate professions like those of referees and sports agents, and create a “sports regulating agency.”

The recent fiascos of Brazil’s national team, like the “humiliating defeat” by France in the final match of the 1998 World Cup, are blamed by the Senate commission report on the “incompetence and dishonesty” of football officials, who subject the sport “to the illicit interests of a cartel-controlled market.”

Another of the recommended bills would create a dispute settlement body for litigation between athletes and clubs, on which representatives of the bar association would sit as “neutral members,” said Krieger.

The strong findings of the Senate commission and the new laws that should be opened up to a broad public debate could put Brazil’s sports on the right road, as a “fundamental factor in the development of a country,” said the lawyer.