Pivot of the scandal that shook Brazilian arbitration in 2005 and led to the cancellation of 11 Brazilian Championship matches that year, Edílson Pereira de Carvalho stated that it is still very easy to manipulate football games.
“Today there are 22 Edilsons on the field,” said the former referee in participation in the documentary series Mafia do whistle, named by which the episode was marked at the time.
The reference is clear: In addition to the referees, the 11 players of each team can also interfere with the results and situations of a match in an anti -sport and criminal way.
Recent investigations, such as Operation Penalty, from the Goiás Public Prosecution Service, which found the performance of a group of gamblers who enlisted players, and the complaint to striker Bruno Henrique, Flamengo, who was suspended from the Brazilian Championship and became a defendant in court, suspected of sports fraud, reinforce the opinion of the former referee.
Produced by SporTV channel in partnership with producer Feel The Match, the three-episode series will debut on Friday (5) at 7:30 pm on the signature channel. Then it will also be available on Globoplay.
Although it establishes a brief connection with current facts, production even proposes to make a historical scandal rescue and to shed light on questions raised by Edílson himself.
“I made a lot more money [com o esquema de apostas] in the Paulista Championship than in the Brazilian Championship. So, the question remains in the air: Why were the Brazilian games only annulled? Why not the Paulista ones? Why not the Libertadores? “
For Bruno Maia, director of the series, although journalists of the time had “brilliant coverage” of the case, the reports focused on the championship that was underway, in this case, the Brazilian.
“Libertadores had already ended, the Paulista Championship, too. In a way, everything was relativized,” Maia told the Sheet. “The story ended up being told by the Brazilian Championship,” he added.
In addition to Edilson, referee Paulo José Danelon was the target of the investigations. Both were banned from football and later denounced by the prosecutor by estelionato, gang formation and ideological falsehood.
The scandal was revealed by Veja magazine in October 2005. The publication showed that Edílson and Danelon combined game results along with a group of gamblers, led by Nagib Fayad. Each referee received between R $ 10,000 (R $ 29 thousand in current amounts, corrected by inflation) and R $ 15 thousand (R $ 44 thousand) per fraudulent match.
The criminal action was suspended in 2007 by order of Judge Fernando Miranda, of the TJ-SP (Court of Justice of São Paulo). In August 2009, the same magistrate and two other court colleagues determined the locking of the action, understanding that the facts found did not characterize a crime of estelionato.
“Edilson was in custody for five days because the crime of defrauding games was not typified [no Código Penal]”, The director recalled.
For Bruno Maia, the scandal could have been avoided if football structures had not failed at the beginning of Edílson’s trajectory. He falsified a high school diploma to take the referee course at the FPF (Paulista Football Federation).
“It’s a systemic fragility. And that was discovered in 2003, but he came back, that is, the guy came with several flaws. In the series, some referees say they knew that Edílson had financial problems because of bingos. This was all known and shows how a thick view and even an apology for the charm of trickery,” says the director.
In his testimony in the series, the former referee points out that his rise within football was quick. “I falsified a second degree diploma to register in the Paulista Football Federation. At three years old, I was already in the first division.”
The 11 games whistled by Edílson in the 2005 Brazilian were annulled by the STJD (Superior Court of Sports Justice). Luiz Zveiter, then president of the court, said the annulment occurred to completely remove the referee’s participation in the tournament and restore the prestige of the dispute.
That year’s edition ended with the Corinthians title, with three points more than the International, the second place. The alvinegra team had two of their rescheduled matches, two losses with Edílson in the whistle. In the repetition of the games, he won four points, decisive for the conquest.
