William Pereira Rogatto and the case that exposed football’s vulnerability to betting manipulation
The story of Brazilian businessman William Pereira Rogatto, known by the nickname “the king of relegation”, has once again opened one of the most difficult questions in modern sport: how closely systematic match-fixing is connected to the sports betting market and how exposed clubs, players, referees and fans are to the consequences of such schemes. Rogatto drew public attention with testimony before an investigative committee of the Brazilian Senate, where he admitted involvement in the manipulation of football matches and claimed that he had earned around 300 million Brazilian reais from activities linked to clubs being relegated. According to the Senate’s publication, in the same testimony he stated that he had influenced the relegation of 42 clubs, that he had operated in all Brazilian federal states and the Federal District, as well as in nine other countries, including Colombia.
Some of these claims still need to be treated with caution because not all of them have been confirmed in court. But the case is no longer merely a set of dramatic statements before a parliamentary body. According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Federal District and Territories, MPDFT, Rogatto was convicted in April 2026 as the leader of an organized group that manipulated matches in the Campeonato Candango, the championship of Brazil’s Federal District, with the aim of gaining benefits on the sports betting market. The court decision in that case gave concrete judicial confirmation to at least part of the pattern he had described: pre-match arrangements, coordinated behaviour by players on the pitch, financial interests linked to the betting market and the exploitation of weaker clubs.
What Rogatto claimed before the Senate
According to a report by Agência Senado from 8 October 2024, Rogatto gave his testimony by video link before the Committee of Inquiry into Match Manipulation and Sports Betting, a body of the Brazilian Senate established to examine suspicions of football result-fixing. The Senate states that Rogatto presented himself as an admitted participant in the schemes and said that money was not made from victories, but from defeats and clubs being relegated. Particular attention was drawn to his claim that match manipulation is second only to politics and drug trafficking in value, a formulation that in Brazil became a symbol of the dark side of the rapidly growing betting market.
Rogatto, according to the same source, claimed that he possessed photographs, recordings, negotiations and conversations showing how a “complex system” of manipulation works. In his testimony he spoke about club presidents, federations, referees, players and betting interests, but such claims must be distinguished from legally established facts. An investigative committee can collect testimony and documents, but criminal responsibility is determined by the courts. That is precisely why it is important that Rogatto’s statements not be treated as proof for every individual match or every club he mentioned, but as a starting point for broader investigations into patterns of manipulation.
The Senate committee had a broader mandate than the Rogatto case alone. According to the Senate’s official website, its task was to investigate reports and suspicions of result manipulation in Brazilian football, including the possible involvement of players, club officials and betting companies. Such a framework shows that in Brazil the problem is not viewed as an isolated fraud by one individual, but as a systemic risk to the integrity of competitions. Rogatto’s testimony therefore brought together several elements that international analyses often cite as key: financial pressure on lower-tier clubs, weak oversight of smaller competitions and the possibility of manipulating details of a match, not only the final result.
Judicial confirmation in the Santa Maria case
The most concrete part of the case concerns Sociedade Esportiva Santa Maria and the 2024 Federal District championship. According to MPDFT, four defendants were convicted in a case arising from Operation “Fim de Jogo”, led by GAECO, a special group for combating organized crime. The prosecution states that the group operated in a structured manner in order to agree actions before matches and coordinate players’ behaviour on the pitch, with the aim of obtaining financial benefit through sports betting. According to MPDFT, the indictment highlighted unusual betting patterns, suspicious financial communications and analyses of disputed actions in matches.
For Rogatto, the sentence was severe: according to MPDFT, he received 13 years and six months in prison under a closed regime, along with a fine. Amauri Pereira dos Santos, whom the prosecution described as Rogatto’s right-hand man, was sentenced to 11 years and ten months in prison. Players Alexandre Batista Damasceno and Nathan Henrique Gama da Silva were each sentenced to seven years in prison. According to the prosecution, the court concluded that the group operated with a division of tasks, with the involvement of management of Santa Maria’s football department and the direct participation of players on the pitch.
This part of the story is especially important because it shows why lower-tier and financially weaker clubs are vulnerable to manipulation. According to MPDFT, the court found that the organized group used the club’s financial vulnerability to create an environment suitable for fraud. Such a pattern is also known from other international cases: unstable income, low wages, weaker media coverage and less oversight create room in which it is easier to influence individuals. That is why the fight against match-fixing cannot be reduced only to punishments after fraud has occurred, but must include prevention, education, financial oversight and rapid data exchange.
Why the betting market has changed risks in sport
Sports betting in itself is not proof of manipulation, but the global spread of online betting has changed the economics of fraud. Today, it is not necessarily required to fix the final result of a match for a criminal group to make a profit. It is enough to influence the number of cards, corners, penalties, goals in a particular part of the match or other events offered on live betting markets. Such “spot-fixing” is harder for an ordinary viewer to recognize because it can be hidden behind a mistake, poor form or a tactical decision.
In its integrity materials, FIFA defines match manipulation as the unlawful influencing or altering of the course, result or any other aspect of a football match or competition. Such a definition is important because it covers both omissions and active actions: a player can deliberately make a mistake, a referee can make a disputed decision, an official can enable access to the team, and an external intermediary can organize the placing of bets.
UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warns in its Global Report on Corruption in Sport that the globalization of sport, the large inflow of money, the growth of legal and illegal betting and technological changes have created new opportunities for criminal networks. INTERPOL also states that the fight against sports crime requires cooperation between police, betting regulators, sports organizations and the betting industry itself. In other words, cases such as Rogatto’s are not only a matter of Brazilian football, but part of a broader international problem in which money crosses borders quickly.
Brazil has meanwhile tightened regulation
In recent years, Brazil has moved quickly to regulate the sports betting market. According to the Ministry of Finance, fixed-odds betting was legalized through an earlier legal framework for sports betting, while Law No. 14.790 of 2023 expanded and regulated the area of online games and betting. The Ministry states that from 1 January 2025, only operators approved by the competent Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas may operate at the national level, and authorized websites use the “.bet.br” domain. This detail is important because it shows the state’s effort to move a market that had long grown in a grey zone into a regime of licensing, oversight and accountability.
Brazil’s legislative framework also includes requirements related to integrity, the prevention of money laundering, user protection and responsible gambling. According to information from the Ministry of Finance, operators must meet regulatory conditions, and the SIGAP system is designed as a tool for the management, oversight and authorization of the market. Regulation alone, however, does not remove the risk. A legal market can help monitor stakes and suspicious patterns, but criminal groups can use illegal platforms, intermediaries, third-party accounts and international money flows.
The Federal Police announced in April 2026 that the manipulation of sports results is often linked to organized crime and requires a coordinated state response. That announcement emphasized the importance of connecting intelligence work, regulation and investigations, as well as the National Policy for the Prevention and Suppression of the Manipulation of Sports Results. For the Rogatto case, this context is especially important because it shows that, after a series of scandals, Brazilian institutions began treating match-fixing as a security and financial problem, and not only as a disciplinary issue for sports federations.
An international problem that crosses the borders of clubs and leagues
The Council of Europe, through the Macolin Convention, emphasizes that effective action against the manipulation of sports competitions requires public authorities, sports organizations, betting operators and competition organizers. The Convention is the first international legal instrument specifically aimed at the manipulation of sports competitions, and its logic rests on cooperation and data exchange. Although the Rogatto case is taking place in Brazil, the same principles apply globally: without connecting sporting, financial and criminal information, it is difficult to prove who ordered the manipulation, who carried it out and who profited from it.
INTERPOL’s match-fixing task force brings together police units and national contact points around the world. According to INTERPOL, such networks serve to exchange experience, coordinate investigations and connect police services with sports federations and specialized betting monitoring systems. In practice, a suspicious match in one country can be connected to stakes placed in another and intermediaries in a third. That is why the international aspect is crucial: money from manipulation does not respect the borders of national championships.
Rogatto’s claims that he operated in several countries should, for now, be cited as his claims and not as a confirmed fact for every state. But even the very possibility of such activity fits with what UNODC, INTERPOL and the Council of Europe warn about: sports manipulation is most dangerous when financially vulnerable participants, high liquidity in the betting market, weak data exchange and cross-border criminal links come together. Then a lower-tier match can become part of a broader financial operation in which the sporting result is only a tool for extracting money.
Consequences for clubs, players and public trust
At the centre of every match-fixing scandal is not only illegal profit, but also damage to sporting credibility. When relegation from a league is involved, the consequences are particularly deep: the club loses revenue, players lose market value, fans lose trust, and the entire competition suffers reputational damage. That is why, according to MPDFT, the court in the Santa Maria case emphasized that the manipulation of results undermined the integrity of sporting competitions and public trust in the championship.
Players are an especially sensitive issue. Public debate often focuses on betting companies and organizers, but manipulation on the pitch usually requires at least one person with direct influence on the game. Depending on the type of scheme, these can be players, referees or members of the coaching staff. Younger or lower-paid footballers may be exposed to pressure, blackmail or the promise of money many times greater than their regular earnings. For that reason, sports institutions are increasingly introducing education, anonymous reporting channels and the obligation to report suspicious approaches alongside sanctions.
For clubs, the greatest challenge is to prove that they have internal controls and that they do not turn a blind eye to unusual events. If financially weak clubs are used as an entry point for manipulation, then the question of integrity is also linked to the sustainability of the sports system. Unpaid wages, non-transparent contracts, unregulated intermediaries and weak governance structures increase vulnerability. The Santa Maria case is therefore a warning that the fight against match-fixing does not begin only when a suspicious bet appears, but much earlier, in the way clubs are financed, managed and supervised.
From admission to proof
Rogatto’s case shows the difference between public admission, parliamentary investigation and criminal proceedings. Before the Senate, he made broad claims about dozens of clubs, large sums of money and a years-long system of manipulation. The judicially confirmed part concerns a specific case in the Federal District, in which the prosecution and the court linked the behaviour of the actors to match manipulation and benefits on the betting market. This difference is not a formality, but a key boundary of responsible reporting: what a person has stated must be attributed to that person, while what a court has established must be presented as a judicially established fact.
At the same time, the fact that Rogatto has been convicted gives this case a weight that goes beyond spectacular statements. The April 2026 judgment is not only a punishment for an individual, but also a message that the manipulation of sports results can be treated as organized crime with a financial motive. When evidence is collected through financial traces, communications, match analyses and betting patterns, an investigation can show how a scheme functioned, not only who was on the pitch.
That is precisely why the case of the “king of relegation” remains relevant even after the judgment. It brings together three levels of the problem: the personal responsibility of those convicted, the institutional vulnerability of clubs and the market pressure brought by the huge sports betting industry. If sporting and state institutions fail to exchange data quickly, protect whistleblowers, monitor suspicious financial flows and punish organizers, manipulations will adapt to new rules. And once trust is undermined that a match is being played for victory, and not because of someone else’s bet, the damage to sport far exceeds the amount someone earned from a fixed result.
Sources:
- Agência Senado – report on Rogatto’s testimony before the Committee of Inquiry into Match Manipulation and Sports Betting (link)
- Senado Federal – official page of the Committee of Inquiry into Match Manipulation and Sports Betting (link)
- MPDFT – announcement on the conviction of defendants in Operation “Fim de Jogo” (link)
- ge.globo – report on the sentence against William Pereira Rogatto and the Santa Maria case (link)
- Ministério da Fazenda – information on the regulation of fixed-odds betting in Brazil (link)
- Polícia Federal – announcement on the national approach to combating the manipulation of sports results (link)
- UNODC – Global Report on Corruption in Sport, context on criminal risks in sport and betting (link)
- INTERPOL – information on corruption in sport and the match-fixing task force (link)
- Council of Europe – Macolin Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (link)