An Argentine football referee has been banned by the country’s football association after it was detected that he had placed bets on the sport.
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) confirmed this week that it has banned Matías Beares after a joint investigation by the Buenos Aires City Lottery and sports betting operator BPlay.
Beares placed bets on a second division match between Deportivo Morón and Almirante Brown. He placed two bets totalling 500,000 Argentine pesos (£386,000/$491,000) and won over 2m Argentine pesos (£1.5m/$1.9m) after Morón beat Brown 5-1.
Though he has not officially refereed since 2019, Beares has remained part of the AFA’s official refereeing team. He has now been expelled from the refereeing team for committing ‘a serious offence’ in violation of its betting rules.
The development is the latest in a series of controversies in South American football. Just last month, a City of Buenos Aires lawmaker filed a complaint over match fixing citing a referee, the National Director of Refereeing and the treasurer of the AFA.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Brazil has also been seeing its fair share of refereeing and betting controversies – though in this case, the country’s National Association of Soccer Referees (ANAF) has been vocal around match fixing.
The association called for the suspension of the Brasileiro Serie A earlier this year following statements by Botafogo’s owner about match fixing in front of a parliamentary committee back in April.
These controversies come at a crucial time for Brazil’s regulated betting market, which is due for launch on 1 January 2025 after nearly two years of legislative development.
Though the legislation approving the market was approved months ago, legislators have been fine tuning the provisions of the regulatory framework for some time, covering areas like sponsorship, sports integrity and oversight.
