March 25 – In a move aimed at protecting Brazilian football from match-fixing and other threats to its integrity, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has signed a landmark agreement with the Qatar-based International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS).
The signing came on the eve of Saturday’s prestige friendly between England and Brazil at Wembley as part of a national plan by the CBF to fight crime throughout the Brazilian game and implement sports integrity training programmes.
Friday’s ceremony marked the first time the ICSS – a not for profit organisation based in Qatar and formally launched in March 2011 with a global mission to promote and protect the integrity and security of sport – has partnered with a single football federation.
Having brought together respected leaders from sport, government agencies, law enforcement, international organisations, academia and the business community, the group has established an experienced team of experts in an effort to improve event safety and security and enhance sporting integrity worldwide – including the first-ever research into the scale of manipulation of sports competitions in co-operation with the Sorbonne.
“This is an opportunity for us to take an important step in combatting corruption in football not just with words but with actions,” CBF President Ednaldo Rodrigues told a news conference.
The Cooperation Agreement with ICSS includes an awareness campaign involving influential Brazilian football players and legends.
The Brazilian delegation at Friday’s signing included Brazilian internationals Danilo and Vinicius Jn, the latter having been plagued with horrendous racist abuse during his time with Real Madrid in Spain.
Explaining the rationale behind the agreement, ICSS Chairman Mohammed Hanzab commented: “When CBF told us about their plans to position Brazil, with its over 200 million inhabitants and many more Brazilian football fans around the world, as an international benchmark in the field of integrity, we understood there was a unique opportunity to put into practice, on the ground, all the knowledge and the instruments we have developed in the last 12 years.
“Jointly with CBF, we decided to sign our agreement here in Wembley, one of the most symbolic places of football in the world, to highlight the global dimension of our initiative and of the issues we want to tackle.”
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