Costa Rica promotes a bill to penalize match-fixing
The Costa Rican Football Federation reported that a bill on the manipulation of sports competitions has been submitted to the Legislative Assembly, backed by the heads of all political factions, proposing penalties of two to five years in prison. The bill was drafted by the federation's Integrity Office team, under the leadership of integrity officer Carlos Ricardo Benavides Jiménez, with the aim of providing effective legal tools to prevent and combat crime linked to sports, especially match-fixing.
The proposal suggests incorporating a new article into the Penal Code that would sanction any person who, directly or indirectly, promises, offers, delivers, solicits, accepts, or receives money, gifts, benefits, or advantages of any kind with the purpose of altering, manipulating, or predetermining the development, partial or final result, or any incident of a match or sports competition. The sanction would also apply when seeking to fraudulently influence the behavior of athletes, teams, referees, judges, coaches, directors, or officials linked to the competition, and it covers both professional and amateur tournaments in Costa Rican territory, without being limited to altering the final score, as it would also allow for sanctioning the manipulation of partial results or specific incidents of the game.
The federation reported that the penalty may be increased by up to one-third when the manipulation seeks to obtain profits derived from legal or illegal sports betting, when it is carried out through threats or coercion, or when it is committed by a person holding a sports management position. The initiative draws on criteria promoted by organizations such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and FIFA, and it considered legislative experiences developed in countries such as Spain, Germany, and Paraguay, among others.
According to the federation, the initiative seeks to close an existing gap in national legislation and provide competent authorities with better tools to investigate, prosecute, and sanction behaviors that affect the transparency of competitions, public trust, the safety of those involved in sports, and the credibility of sports institutions, in addition to preventing Costa Rican sports from being used by networks linked to illegal betting, corruption, and organized crime.
Tags: Costa Rican Football Federation, sports competition manipulation, Carlos Ricardo Benavides Jiménez, match fixing