SUA VIDA COMO ÁRBITRO ENVOLVIDO EM ESQUEMAS DE BETS

Level 1: Apito. You are 31 years old. FIFA referee affiliated with the São Paulo Football Federation. 12 years of career. 6 as a field referee, 2 as a FIFA referee. You played for the Libertadores, Copa do Brasil, 83 games of the Brazilian Serie A. You are good, not perfect.

Error rate below average. Club complaint within acceptable. CBF report positive in the last three seasons. Your salary per game spent: R$ 7,000. Each game. You spend on average two games a week in the intense season periods. R$ 14,000 per week. R$ 56,000 per month. It's good money. It's money that most people will never see.

but you live in São Paulo, have an apartment in Pinheiros, a child in a private school, car financing, and the referee's career doesn't have FGTS, doesn't have retirement, doesn't have a health plan paid by the federation. You will be a referee for another 10 years if everything goes well. Then what? You've been carrying this question without an answer for 27 years.

On a Thursday in October, you receive a message on WhatsApp. Number you don't know. Short text. Arbitrarian. I know who you are. I have a proposal that you won't want to refuse. Can we talk? You keep looking at the message for a while. You should delete. You know you should delete. You answer. You can talk. Level 2: The proposal.

The man who finds you in a coffee shop in Itaim Bibi on a Monday afternoon is called Fábio. Forty-something years old, tender, without a tie, discreet watch that you know costs what you earn in two months. He doesn't go straight to the point. He talks about football, arbitration, how the system is unfair to referees who work so hard and earn so little compared to players who earn less.

He knows his numbers, knows his games, knows his statistics, knows his financial situation in a way that you don't ask how. After 20 minutes of indirect conversation, he speaks directly. He represents a group of investors who operate international betting houses, located in Malta, Curaçao, Cyprus, outside Brazilian law.

The group bets on specific markets of the Brazilian game, not on the final result. In smaller markets, yellow card in the first half, box above a certain number, lack in the area without penalty. Details that an referee controls without anyone noticing. You immediately understand what he is describing.

He says the value: 50 thousand reais per game, paid in 48 hours after the game, via account in the name of the company abroad that you will open, via transfer that looks like a sports consultancy. 50 thousand reais per game, more than you officially earn in a whole month. He puts a card with the number on the table. He tells you not to answer now. He says to think.

You go home, sit at the kitchen table, look at the card. You think about the 10 years you still have of career, in 48 games per year, in 50 thousand reais per game. You will be afraid to do the math, but you do the math. You call the number on the card. Level 3, the first game. Three weeks later, Brasileirão Série A, Saturday, 16 hours. You are the field referee.

The combination is simple: first time you will give the yellow card in the fifth or sixth miss of the commanding team. No matter the intensity, you will tie the card in your pocket until you reach the combined number. Fábio sent you the details on Thursday via the encrypted app that he taught you to install. The app deletes itself after 24 hours.

You enter the field. Heating, equipment review, conversation with the assistants. Nothing different from any other Saturday. The game starts.

On the 10th foul, you take the card. The player protests. The bench complains. Normal. You've already given the card for a lighter foul. Nobody will look at it twice. You kick the end of the first half. Go to the locker room. Sit on the bench alone while the assistants talk to the outside team. You keep looking at the kick in your hand for a while. You just manipulated a game from the Brazilian Serie A.

The game ends in 2-1. Fábio's group's betting house made a profit on top of the card market you delivered. On Monday, 50 thousand reais appear in a company account registered in Malta, which Fábio's accountant opened in 30 minutes with his data. You look at the extract. The money is there as it should have always been. Level 4: The scale. Eight months after the first game.

You manipulated 18 games. 18!

Brasileirão, Copa do Brasil, two Libertadores matches where Fábio's operation had international bettors with access to European odds that moved larger volumes. You don't manipulate results. You kept this line in the first months. You only deliver secondary market: card, box, side, lack in the area, things that don't change the scoreboard, but that the betting network explores because odds are less monitored,

But Fábio returns with a new proposal in the ninth month. A specific game. Team from the relegation zone against the team in the middle of the table. The group wants results. Victory of the visiting team. You would be responsible for creating the environment. Two red cards in the leading team in the second half. Just enough expulsion not to raise suspicion. Decisive enough to unbalance.

The value? 180 thousand reais for this game. You spend two days without sleeping properly. You call Fábio and accept.

The game takes place on a Wednesday in July. You kick out two players from the bench between 54 and 67 minutes. The kicks are justifiable: a violent foul, second card for complaint. You didn't invent it. You waited for the right moment and made the decision that favored what was agreed. The visiting team wins 1-0 with one more man for almost half an hour.

The fans complain about the arbitration in WhatsApp groups. The sports press debates whether the expulsions were excessive. The STJD opens the official analysis. The STJD finds nothing irregular. You have R$ 180,000 more in Malta's account. And you crossed the line that you swore you wouldn't cross. Level 5: The System

One year and four months in. You are no longer a piece. You are part of the structure. Fabio revealed over time the size of what you entered. It is not a group of investors. It is a network. With referees in São Paulo, Rio, Minas, Northeast, with players who deliver performance in individual stat markets, with club leaders who sell game results from the D series for 500 thousand reais,

With operators in Malta, Curaçao and Cyprus crossing the lines in time windows that the Federation monitoring system does not detect. William Rogato, the name that later appears in CPI, was the architect. You never knew his name at the time. You knew Fábio. Fábio knew two more things: Compartmentation. Nobody knows the total size of what touches. What you know is your piece. And your piece has grown.

You are in a group of four referees that Fábio coordinates. You don't talk to each other, you've never met. But the games you collect collectively create a pattern that the network uses to bet on volume without the market monitoring identifying suspicious concentration.

You processed 2.1 million reais in 18 months. 2.1 million in a account in Malta, which turned into 3 accounts in 3 different countries after an offshore-specialized accountant washed the path.

You still get paid by the official salary of R$ 7,000 per game. You still get to the stadium in uniform, you still warm up, you still talk to the assistants like any other Saturday. No one knows what you carry in your pocket besides the tip. Level 6: CPI

October 2024: The Senate installs the Sports Betting CPI. You follow the sessions on your cell phone, alone, in the apartment in Pinheiros, at night, with the volume down.

William Rogato deposes. You don't know who Rogato is, but you hear him talk and you recognize the scheme by the wayside. He talks about referees who would receive 50 thousand reais per adulterated game. He talks about 42 relegated teams. He says the mafia is within the federations, within the CBF, which is a system, not an exception. You stop the video when he talks about referees. You look at the screen for a while.

you think: "He's talking about me, without knowing he's talking about me." The following week, the end-of-game operation of the PF and the MPDFT deflates prisons. Not in your group, in another, but from the same network, you can see by the names that come out in the press.

Fábio disappears. The encrypted app does not respond. The WhatsApp number is off. You spend three days waiting for the door to knock. The door does not knock, but you know that the network is being pulled and that when a tip is pulled, the whole ship can come together. You have 2.1 million reais distributed in three countries and a valid passport for another four years.

You open the computer. Search for flights. Not for any specific place yet. Just search. Just look for options. You close the computer. Open again.