April 11 – Brazil’s Santa Catarina state league has signed up with Sportradar’s match-fixing security service to monitor league matches. It is the second of the state leagues, after Sao Paulo, to bring in the company’s Fraud Detection System to monitor betting patterns.
A multi-year contract was signed with the Associação de Clubes de Futebol Profissional de Santa Catarina (ACFPSC) and the Federação Catarinense de Futebol (FCF). This will cover the southern Brazilian state’s 92 league matches each season.
The 10-team Santa Catarina league plays a two-stage season, each half of the season plays a round-robin format with the top four qualifying for semi-finals and a final. The league winner is then decided by home and away play-offs between the winners of the firt and secod stages of the competition.
On a national level games in Brazil’s Brasileirao are already monitored for fraud under a deal Sportradar Integrity Services has with regional governing body CONMEBOL. But that deal doesn’t reach down into the state leagues,
ACFPSC CEO Luiz Henrique Martins Ribeiro said: “Our responsibility is to ensure that Santa Catarina’s football is pure, exciting and uplifting. There can be no half measures in this regard.”
The state’s most famous club is Chapecoense who were catapulted into global focus when in November last year the plane transporting them to the final of the Copa Sudamerica in Boliva, crashed in Colombia killing 71 of the 77 people on board including 22 players, 23 coaching and other club staff, 2 guests and 21 journalists. The match was never played and Chapecoense were later awarded the title.
Talking about the need to safeguard the league, FCF President Rubens Renato Angelotti said: “Our state has a proud tradition of football and we are glad we can establish a working relationship with the global leaders in integrity. Their reputation precedes them and we are sure that their oversight will send a powerful message of how the FCF and the ACFPSC intend to drive the Campeonata Catarinense’s bright future.”
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