Judgment of the decision is published, and the defense of Gabigol, from Flamengo, prepares the appeal | Flamengo

The ruling that suspended Gabigol for two years – the sentence began to be counted from the date of collection, on April 8, 2023 (understand at the end of the text) – was published on Thursday night. With this, the Flamengo striker’s defense, carried out by lawyer Bichara Neto’s office, began analyzing documents to make the necessary legal moves.

Lawyer specializing in anti-doping speaks to Seleção about Gabigol’s suspension

The request for suspensive effect is not made immediately upon publication of the ruling. Bichara Neto and his team will first translate the decision published this Thursday and begin to debate how they will defend Gabigol.

As this is not a simple process and faced with a complex document, the expectation is that the request for suspensive effect will be made at the beginning of next week.

Bichara Neto’s office is also already working on the appeal with which it will try to acquit Gabigol.

Journalist Venê Casagrande first reported that the ruling that punished Gabigol was published this Thursday.

As per the anti-doping regulations (read more below), the penalty came into effect on April 8, 2023, when tests were collected at the club’s CT, even if the player had been active for the last year. Therefore, he is banned from playing until April 2025.

With two years on the hook – the punishment could reach four years -, Gabigol can play in April 2025 – that is, not in April 2026. The vice-president of the Anti-Doping Court of Justice, Selma Melo, explained that the code establishes the following in item II of article 163 – the article that deals with the beginning of the suspension period:

“in the event of substantial delays in the results management procedure and, when demonstrated by the athlete or another person that they did not cause such delays, ABCD or TJD-AD, as applicable, may establish the beginning of the suspension period:

I – on the date of sample collection;”

(Excerpts taken from the Brazilian Anti-Doping Code)

The player was represented by the team of lawyer Bichara Neto, who defended Paolo Guerrero in his suspension for doping in the FIFA courts in 2017. The club’s general and legal vice-president, Rodrigo Dunshee, also participated in the session in defense of the attacker, who will appeal with the help of Flamengo (read note below) to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, in Switzerland, a FIFA court.

The complaint was made at the end of December. The player’s defense was sent on January 26th, within the deadline, and included images from Ninho do Urubu’s security camera to try to corroborate the athlete’s version.

On the 20th, the first session of the trial at the Anti-Doping Sports Justice Court (TJD-AD) was held online for five hours. Gabigol gave testimony via videoconference, as did seven other witnesses.

At the time, the court decided to close the session and continue this Monday, also remotely. Gabigol once again participated in the session this afternoon. One of the player’s defense points says that the attacker took a blood test, considered more effective.

“The Clube de Regatas do Flamengo, taking note of the result of the trial of its athlete Gabriel Barbosa, in the sense of applying a 2-year suspension sentence, until April 2025, by 5 votes for conviction and 4 for acquittal, comes public say that he received the said decision with surprise and that he will assist the athlete in presenting an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), as he understands that there was no type of fraud, not even an attempt, to justify the punishment applied.”

Gabigol was accused of making it difficult to carry out anti-doping tests. Even if he took the exam and tested negative, according to the article, the attitude reported by the collection officers fits as “fraud or attempted fraud of any part of the control process” and, therefore, the attacker responded under article 122 of the Brazilian Anti-Doping Code.

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