In an unprecedented move, Flamengo are offering odds on their ‘in-house’ betting platform Flabet and encouraging supporters to gamble on the club’s own matches. Will this be a new trend, elite clubs having their own betting brand?
By Sam Kunti
Amid all the questionable sponsors at the Club World Cup, at Flamengo’s matches against Espérance de Tunis, Chelsea, Los Angeles FC and Bayern Munich, one brand stood out, hiding in plain sight and escaping everyone’s attention. On the hoardings, long-time Fifa partner Qatar Airways was enticing travellers to splash out on their next trip. The target audience of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund’s tagline ‘Invested In Better’ was somewhat more nebulous.
On Flamengo’s shirt, Flabet wanted you to gamble. Brazil’s leading club with more than 40 million supporters, is taking Flabet to the world. At Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, the team of manager Filipe Luis, the former left back of Chelsea and Atlético Madrid, wore the famous red-black shirt with Flabet plastered over the front. Bruno Henrique came on as a substitute twice to reinforce Flamengo’s attack, with a decisive cameo against the London club. Earlier in June, Brazilian prosecutors said they want the Flamengo forward in court for fraud, accusing him of spot-fixing – the act of deliberately causing an event in a match for the benefit of betting – in a match against Santos in 2023, the year that he served as an ambassador for BetPix365. His brother, Wander Nunes Pinto Junior, is suspected of involvement in the scheme in which Henrique allegedly arranged a late booking. Flamengo did not suspend Bruno Henrique, maintaining the position that he has a right to defend himself and that he has not been convicted by any tribunal.
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