FIFA Master Alumnus instrumental to approve new legislation in Brazil
Last week, Brazil’s President, Michel Temer, sanctioned a new ground-breaking legislation on sports betting, which may alter the fate of all sports, but primarily football, in the country. That event was motivated by the arguments presented by professor Pedro Trengrouse, FIFA Master Alumni and Academic Coordinator of the FGV/FIFA/CIES Executive Programme on Sports Management – the programme is celebrating its 10th edition in 2019 with more than 500 graduates, the largest number of graduate professionals from the Brazilian sport industry.
Prof. Trengrouse, a frequent panellist at FMA events around the world, is widely recognised as the leading academic expert on sports, gaming and lotteries in Brazil and has been raising further questions regarding sports current business model based almost exclusively on TV rights, pointing out that Sport must find out a new business model, much more based on real engagement than on pure visibility.
He pinpoints that 2017 was the first year with more advertising investment online than on TV - US$ 205 billion against US$ 192 billion - and stresses that sports betting is the strongest trend in fan engagement, claiming that Sport should get funds from that. “FIFA's total revenues with the FIFA World Cup 2018 were less than €6 billion whereas the total global betting turnover related to the World Cup was estimated at €136 billion”, says Trengrouse. “The lack of involvement from sports authorities increases the risks of match fixing, without any investment or compensation to the sport” he concludes.
The Brazilian Ministry of Finance is expected to issue regulations for online sports betting in the country within the next two years and Prof. Trengrouse, who is a supporter in the development of Sport International Global Alliance (SIGA), has already started voicing out that it should primarily focus on protecting the integrity of sports rather than just allowing offshore betting companies to operate legally in Brazil.
Click here to read the article on Brazil's largest newspaper, Folha de Sao Paulo, about Pedro Trengrouse's role in the approval of the new legislation (in Portuguese).