Brazilian sports court rejects Caboclo appeal to allow him to return to run CBF

July 24 – Rogerio Caboclo will not return from suspension to resume the  presidency of the Confederation of Brazilian Sport (CBF), a Brazilian sports court has ruled. The football official has been side lined for 60 days because of sexual harassment allegations.

The Superior Tribunal de Justiça Desportivo (STJD) rejected Caboclo’s appeal against the decision of the CBF ethics committee to suspend the organisation’s president because his appeal was filed too late. The court therefore saw no reason to address the merit of the case.

The STJD’s decision is another stinging defeat for Caboclo in his attempt to regain control over the CBF. In the past fortnight, the football official had been upbeat about his return to the organisation.

In four videos, sent to the presidents of the 27 state federations and obtained by Brazilian outlet Metropoles, Caboclo said he was the victim of “blackmail, espionage and attempted coup” by Del Nero, who was banned for life from football by FIFA in April 2018.

In one of the videos, Caboclo claimed that in April a senior CBF leader visited his office “carrying a clandestine recording device” and said that  he was later asked to pay 12 million Brazilian reals for the recording not to be released. He went on to say that he “preserved the organisation’s cash” and that the recording was leaked to the press.

Caboclo’s accusations led to a war of words with Del Nero, who responded in kind with a stinging statement of his own. He said: “My answer to the attacks of the ungrateful and unhappy Rogério Caboclo on my person is the question he is asking himself in the scenes of harassment against his victims, in which he is involved. Am I hideous?”

“The videos, the harassment, now in greater number, because he has two victims and others will emerge and everything he has done, is an answer to his own question. Am I a monster, a liar or just a pervert?”

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