Over several months the Brazilian police secretly recorded the phone conversations of forty-three year-old Edilson Pereira de Carvalho. The allegation is that he received instructions on how to referee First Division matches from participants in an illegal internet betting ring.
It's claimed that sometimes those instructions would come just moments before kick-off. Mr. Carvalho would then favour one team or the other, allegedly for a fee of between four and six thousand dollars per game. The official has now been questioned by the police and suspended from his duties, along with a second referee accused of fixing lower division matches. On Sunday the Brazilian authorities wrote to football's world governing body, FIFA, recommending that Mr. Carvalho also be suspended as an approved international referee.
With Brazil already two thirds of the way through its football season, there's now heated debate about what the authorities should do next. The eleven games refereed by Mr. Carvalho will almost certainly have to be replayed and amid claims of more widespread match fixing, the Brazilian Football Confederation has promised an independent inquiry.
Steve Kingstone, BBC NEWS, Sao Paulo