Judge gives Corinthians 15 days to respond in VaideBet intermediary case | OneFootball

A judge has given Corinthians 15 days to respond to a lawsuit over alleged mediation in the club’s 2024 VaideBet sponsorship, and scrapped a conciliation hearing.

According to Meu Timao, Judge André Augusto Salvador Bezerra said a settlement looked unlikely in such cases and that a hearing would only delay progress.

Businessman Washington Araújo, a club associate, is seeking R$ 8.4 million, claiming one third of a 7% commission on the R$ 360 million deal for three seasons, announced in January 2024.

He says he, along with Toninho Duettos and Sandro Ribeiro, brought VaideBet representatives together with president-elect Augusto Melo and ally Marcelo Mariano in late 2023, when the sponsorship was agreed.

The suit alleges club officials later sidelined the intermediaries and inserted Rede Social Media Design as the recipient of the 7% fee, described as fraudulent, which underpins Araújo’s calculation.

His lawyers argue he was involved at every stage and decisive to the agreement, and the filing cites a Civil Police investigation in 2024 and 2025 that attested to fraud and led to indictments of Augusto Melo, his allies and Rede Social Media representatives. All are currently defendants.

The VaideBet affair also had internal repercussions at Corinthians, with Melo facing the Deliberative Council’s Ethics and Discipline Commission and an impeachment approved in May 2025 and confirmed by a General Assembly in August, removing him from office.

Source: Meu Timao