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Brazil’s congressional investigation into match-fixing (CPI) has been extended for a further week, while Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco has also extended the deadline for the government's provisional measure on sports betting.
The provisional measure emergency legislation to implement a national licensing regime for sports betting had much of its text copied and pasted into the separate sports-betting bill that was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday night (September 13).
The provisional measure was meant to regulate a federal sports-betting law of 2018, but is set to be left to expire in favour of a bill per the orders of Chamber of Deputies Speaker Arthur Lira.
It was said at the time that Lira wanted more control over the project, which a regular bill would allow.
Primary responsibility for provisional measures is assigned to one of the houses of Congress at random, which means there would have been a 50/50 chance that Lira and the Chamber of Deputies would not have control over the final text of the legislation following its review in Congress.
Lira has in the past few weeks tried to do away with all provisional measures, in favour of replacing them with urgency bills, which have 90 days to be debated in both chambers.
Now Pacheco has extended the sports-betting provisional measure by 60 days, keeping it in effect for the maximum 120 days without congressional approval, rather than expiring after a period of 60 days following its publication.
Pacheco has not publicly revealed why he would make such a move, although there are whispers that some senators are unhappy with the fact that online casino games were included in the sports-betting bill as passed by the lower house.
Speaking on Friday (September 15), Pacheco suggested to the Senate's official news service that senators might take a more deliberative path on sports betting than their colleagues in the lower house.
The Chamber of Deputies voted to pass its bill within 24 hours of releasing a draft of the proposal, but Pacheco said he planned to submit the legislation for review by one or more Senate committees.
"We know the importance of having structural proposals for revenue and for the fiscal regime," he said.
Meanwhile, the match-fixing CPI has been given a week’s extension by Lira, a far cry from the 60-day extension that was initially expected.
The congressional probe into recent betting scandals will now run until September 21. Next week, Ednaldo Rodrigues, the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation, will testify before lawmakers, as will Real Betís player Luiz Henrique.
West Ham’s Lucas Paquetá, who was sensationally caught up in a scheme along with Henrique, was scheduled to testify via teleconference in September. It is now presumed that he will no longer be appearing.
The CPI is investigating allegations of spot-fixing in a number of professional football games. The panel will write a report on the matter and make legislative recommendations related to sports integrity and betting.
