Match-Fixing and Sports Corruption (Art. 286 bis CP)

Professional sport moves large economic interests and, around it, a betting market of enormous volume. That combination turns match-fixing into a genuine criminal risk for anyone who can influence the result of a fixture or event. As criminal lawyers focused on match-fixing and sports corruption, we set out here exactly what conduct the Criminal Code (CP) punishes, the penalties it carries, when a competition counts as one of "special relevance", and what the defence is built on. This article deals with match-fixing alone; doping and violence in sport are covered in our general guide to sports criminal law.

What Match-Fixing Is Under the Criminal Code

Match-fixing has no free-standing offence with a name of its own: the legislator placed it within corruption between private parties under Art. 286 bis CP, adding a specific paragraph for sport. In particular, Art. 286 bis.4 CP extends the offence to directors, managers, employees or collaborators of a sports entity —whatever its legal form— as well as to athletes, referees or judges, in respect of conduct whose purpose is to deliberately and fraudulently predetermine or alter the result of a test, fixture or sporting competition of special economic or sporting relevance.

The heart of the offence lies in that twofold requirement: the result must be intended to be predetermined or altered (fixed in advance or distorted), and it must be done deliberately and fraudulently. A poor performance, a refereeing error, a defensive line-up or a sportingly debatable defeat is not enough: what is punished is the agreement or manoeuvre to artificially falsify the outcome. The protected interest is the integrity and fairness of the competition, together with the confidence of the market and of fans that the result reflects sporting merit rather than a prior arrangement.

Punishable Conduct: Directors, Athletes and Bettors

Match-fixing is rarely the work of a single person; it usually takes shape as an arrangement between the party who offers or pays and the party who agrees to distort the result. Art. 286 bis CP punishes, with the same penalty, both sides of that pact:

• Passive side (the recipient): the director, employee, collaborator, athlete, referee or judge who receives, solicits or accepts an unjustified benefit or advantage —money, gifts, promises, any consideration— in order to predetermine or alter the result. This captures both the player or referee who lets themselves be bought and the official who sells a match.
• Active side (the one who offers or pays): whoever promises, offers or grants that benefit or advantage to the above persons as consideration for fixing the result. This is the typical position of the betting ring, the intermediary or the third party who funds the fixing.

The figure of the bettor calls for a clarification. Betting is not an offence; the criminal risk arises when the bettor ceases to be a mere user of the market and takes part in the arrangement —offering or funding the advantage to whoever controls the result, or joining the network that organises it—. Someone who bets on a result they know to be fixed because they are part of the plan is liable as a participant; someone who simply bets does not commit this offence, without prejudice to any civil or administrative consequences the betting operator may draw from the fraud. The conduct may also connect with other offences (fraud against the bookmaker, laundering of the winnings) to be assessed case by case.

Penalties Under Art. 286 bis CP and Aggravations

The sports paragraph refers back to the general penalties for corruption between private parties. Under Art. 286 bis.1 CP, the conduct is punished with:

• Imprisonment of six months to four years.
• Special disqualification from the exercise of trade or commerce for one to six years.
• A fine of one to three times the value of the benefit or advantage.

The provision itself allows for individualisation: Art. 286 bis.3 CP permits the court, having regard to the amount of the benefit or the value of the advantage and the significance of the offender's functions, to impose the penalty one degree lower and reduce the fine at its prudent discretion.

There are also specific aggravations. Art. 286 quáter CP provides that the facts are punished in the upper half of the range, and may reach the next higher degree, where they are of special gravity; and it specifies that, in the case of sports fixing, they will be treated as especially grave where their purpose is to influence the conduct of games of chance or betting, or where they are committed in an official national competition classed as professional or in an international competition. This matters, because "market" fixing —aimed at winning on the bets— falls squarely within that aggravation.

Finally, match-fixing may give rise to the criminal liability of the legal person (the sports entity or company involved) under Art. 31 bis CP, with the fine penalties laid down for these offences, and to the publication of the judgment provided for in Art. 288 CP. The figures and the precise extent of each penalty depend on the offence applied and the circumstances of the case, so they must be checked against the current text of the Criminal Code (CP).

The "Competition of Special Relevance"

Not every instance of fixing is an offence: the provision reaches only competitions of special economic or sporting relevance, and Art. 286 bis.4 CP defines them itself. This requirement is decisive and is often the first battleground of legal argument.

• Special economic relevance: a competition in which most participants receive some form of remuneration, compensation or economic income for taking part. In essence, professionalised sport.
• Special sporting relevance: one that the annual sports calendar approved by the relevant federation classes as an official competition in the highest category of the modality, speciality or discipline concerned.

An important practical consequence follows: the fixing of an amateur, friendly or lower-category fixture that fits neither definition falls, in principle, outside the criminal offence, without prejudice to sporting disciplinary liability. Determining whether the specific competition meets the threshold —by its remunerated nature or by its federative classification— is therefore a legal question of the first order for the defence.

Defence Strategy Against a Match-Fixing Charge

The defence in these matters is built on the precise elements the offence requires, none of which is presumed:

• Absence of fraud and of an arrangement: the core of the offence is the deliberate agreement to falsify the result. A poor sporting performance, a technical decision, an injury, an error or below-expected form are not, in themselves, match-fixing. The prosecution must establish the pact and the fraudulent purpose, not infer them from a surprising result.
• Relevance of the competition: if the event is not of special economic or sporting relevance in the statutory terms, the conduct is not caught. Challenging whether the participants are remunerated or the federative classification can exclude the application of Art. 286 bis CP.
• Evidence and its lawfulness: these proceedings rest on communications (messages, calls, chats), money movements and betting patterns. We examine the chain by which that evidence was obtained, the regularity of any interceptions, and the strength of the pattern analyses, which rarely prove the arrangement on their own.
• Authorship and involvement: separating out who agreed what prevents mere proximity to a network, an ambiguous conversation or the status of director from becoming an automatic basis for liability.
• Overlap with disciplinary proceedings: where the same facts have led to a sporting sanction, we assess its bearing in order to avoid an improper duplication of penalties.

We do not promise an outcome —it depends on the facts, the evidence adduced and the legal characterisation— but we work to ensure that the prosecution is held to the standard the offence imposes and that our client's position is examined with rigour.