After several months of investigations into a match-fixing alert in First and Second Division football, there were catches on canal soil
Three footballers were arrested Tuesday in Panama for allegedly receiving payments to rigged matches of the local league, the highest competition of this sport in the country, in order to favor bets, announced the Panamanian Prosecutor’s Office.
The detainees are “two current players” and “an ex-player” of the Panamanian league, who will be brought to justice in the next few hours “for a crime against the economic order,” the prosecutor against organized crime, Emeldo Márquez, said at a press conference.
The names of the athletes were not disclosed and neither were the clubs they played in. According to the prosecutor, the detainees “offered and promised current league players amounts of money ranging from 2,500 to $4,500” to obtain certain results “for bets.”
“They (the arrested) were working with people from abroad who in some way or other collaborated to provide them with the money to make payments to the athletes,” Márquez said. The payments were handed over in cash to players “immediately” after the matches, although transactions were also made in bitcoin, Marquez added.
Investigations began following a complaint made in 2023 by the Panamanian Football Federation (Fepafut) for alleged rift of matches in the local league.
Marquez did not give details of the matches that would have been rigged, both in the first and second division of the locals. However, he did not delinerate new arrests “from other players or people outside the League who are linked to these events.”
“The tip of the iceberg”
The Panamanian Football League is a semi-professional competition, without large training centers or stadiums, except Rommel Fernández, where the local team plays, in Panama City.
The influx of public to the games is scarce and footballers earn an average monthly salary of about $2,500. In 2022, they went on strike to demand recognition of the right to social security and other labour benefits.
In 2021, the Federation announced a program to denounce possible rigging and alerted the teams that it would have “zero tolerance” for these practices. The entity then invited the clubs to make the corresponding complaints, even anonymously, in case “some person finds out about a match rigging or illegal bet.”
In 2023, former Panamanian selector Gary Stempel denounced the alleged rigging of matches in the league. “Here we talk about match-fixing, which is a scandal, and in the press they remain silent. The league no longer has credibility,” Stempel said.
“Today the first steps are taken in this investigation and this task of ending this crime in an important way begins. As we say in Panama, it can be the tip of the iceberg,” said Fepafut President Manuel Arias.
In Panama, football has been winning followers to baseball and boxing. Now, the exaggerators Julio Dely Valdés and the late Rommel Fernández compete in popularity with boxing legend Roberto ‘Manos de Piedra’ Durán and the former closing baseball player of the New York Yankees, Mariano Rivera.
This article has been translated after first appearing in El Salvador