The American tycoon John Textorowner of Botafogo, this Monday doubled the accusations of corruption against referees during the Senate commission investigating the alleged manipulation of results in this sport. Textor called for more transparency from the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) regarding the selection of referees in league matches.
“The CBF should be more transparent on how the referees are selected, how some pairs of referees, field and VAR are paired in the same way in more than 20 consecutive matches,” he declared before the senators.
The businessman based his testimony on reports that he himself commissioned from ‘Good Game’, a French company that monitors matches using technology, and he promised to share with representatives in a “secret” session afterwards of public hearing. “The evidence shows how the parties were manipulated and not why,” he said after acknowledging that he has no evidence of money payments.
Textor pointed to the referees’ alleged deliberate decisions, such as incorrect offside considerations based on VAR, but also to the “abnormal behavior” of the players. “The technology (of the ‘Good Game’) recognizes what is normal behavior every thousandth of a second, it recognizes a certain margin of variation. If the footballer does not behave within that margin that, it marks that interaction as abnormal,” he explained.
The businessman has sown doubts about Botafogo itself, a team that has lost just three months of its 13-point lead at the top of the Brazilian league in 2023, saying it needs to “look in the mirror” and investigate whether people inside the club who were “bribed.”
Textor leaves everything in the hands of prosecutors
Textor, who also controls English Crystal Palace and French Olympique Lyonnais, said the reports were “fully accepted” by Justice and that prosecutors would have to decide what to do. Last December, the Superior Court of Sports Justice filed a report that he presented, a decision that the businessman attributed to “pressure” from the CBF and the clubs.
Regarding the complaints filed against him by Palmeiras and São Paulo for accusations of irregularities, Textor appears to have partially retracted, saying he did not accuse the management of the clubs of being behind the manipulation.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
