The Costa Rican Football Federation has thrown a second-division club out of the sport for ten years after its investigators concluded the team took part in manipulating four matches during the 2025 season, in what is now the fifth match-fixing case in Costa Rican football to end in sanctions.
The Disciplinary Commission of the Federación Costarricense de Fútbol found that Municipal Garabito Fútbol Club SAD, which competed in the Liga de Ascenso under the name San Carlos FC, breached Article 66 of the federation’s Disciplinary Code. The resolution bars the club from any football-related activity for a decade. The federation’s legal department has since notified every affiliated league — the first division, the Liga de Ascenso, the amateur Linafa structure, futsal, beach football and women’s football — that the prohibition applies to the legal entity regardless of category or format.
The case rests on a report by the federation’s Integrity Office, led by Carlos Ricardo Benavides, which examined four Liga de Ascenso fixtures from the 2024-2025 season. All four ended in lopsided defeats. San Carlos FC lost 8-2 to Quepos Cambute on January 19, 2025, fell 5-1 to Cofutpa on February 9, lost 6-2 away to Municipal Grecia on March 1, and lost 5-2 to Jicaral on March 9. According to the resolution, the investigation found a sustained pattern of irregularities in sports betting linked to matches the club played, together with atypical movement in betting markets.
Much of that evidence came from outside Costa Rica. Sportradar, the sports data firm that assists FIFA with integrity investigations, issued alerts on several of the club’s fixtures after analysing both the state of betting markets before kickoff and the swings recorded while games were in progress. In the Quepos Cambute match, San Carlos FC was leading 1-0 at the 27th minute when heavy money began moving on a San Carlos defeat; the game finished 8-2 to Quepos Cambute.
Sportradar filed a report flagging irregular movement five days later, on January 24. Investigators also drew on reports from the bookmakers Betway, VBet and 9 Olybet and from the International Betting Integrity Association. The Integrity Office concluded that the relationship between the market swings and what happened on the pitch pointed to a high probability of deliberate intervention by the club.
The commission’s finding, as set out in the resolution, is that Municipal Garabito Fútbol Club SAD, known as San Carlos FC, played an active part in the conduct. The franchise had been based in the Pacific canton of Garabito before its owners moved the operation north; the club then competed as San Carlos FC in the Northern Zone. It was relegated from the Liga de Ascenso at the end of the 2024-2025 season and did not subsequently compete in Linafa. The club has no connection to AD San Carlos of the first division, nor to Inter San Carlos, which recently won the Liga de Ascenso title.
Three players who turned out for the club were sanctioned in a separate resolution that became final on June 25 of this year. That file concerned an approach made in April 2025 to players at Deportivo Upala, who were offered money to lose a Liga de Ascenso fixture against San Carlos FC.
The attempt failed because the Upala players reported it. Hansell Arauz Ovares, a retired forward who won four national titles with Deportivo Saprissa between 2014 and 2016, and Henry Cooper Bennett, a former Limón FC striker, were each banned for 15 years. Goalkeeper Fabián Rodríguez Esquivel received 15 years in the same file and a further 20 years in a separate case in which the Integrity Office concluded he had approached a Guadalupe FC player about fixing a first-division match, bringing his total ban to 35 years. All three bans cover any football-related role, whether as a player, coaching staff or club official.
The club expulsion is the second of its kind in Costa Rica. Puerto Golfito FC was excluded for ten years in 2024 on similar grounds. In 2025, three Municipal Turrialba officials — Enrique Valencia, Ernesto de la Torre and Rolando Pereira — were suspended for five years over an alleged manipulation attempt. Each of the cases sanctioned so far has originated in the lower tiers of the Costa Rican game, where budgets are thin, wages are low and matches still attract enough betting volume abroad to make manipulation worth someone’s while.
In notifying every affiliated league of the expulsion, the federation asked each to apply its integrity protocols and strengthen preventive measures. The Integrity Office has indicated that further resolutions are pending.
