On the Irreconcilable Differences Between São Paulo and Fluminense's Projects: A Dialogue with Rodrigo Capelo

In an article entitled "The Tricolores and Professionalization," published in the Friday, October 10, 2025 edition of Estadão, Rodrigo Capelo discusses the projects presented by Fluminense and São Paulo, and, after briefly explaining each, concludes: "For my part, it's professionalization that I support."

In this text, I intend to offer some considerations regarding the brilliant columnist's proposals and, perhaps, establish some counterpoints.

In the very first paragraph, he states that both clubs have one goal: the approval of measures to reduce the interference of amateurism in football.

This premise deserves investigation—and confirmation.

The projects, to begin with, are irreconcilable.

While, according to press reports, Fluminense is debating a transformational model, São Paulo—or its (or some of its) directors—is trying to approve one that involves only the grassroots, without changing the club's football ownership models or current governance.

Then, in the second paragraph, the author states that Fluminense's path is similar to what other clubs, such as Bahia, Botafogo, and Cruzeiro, would have accepted.

Here arises another point for debate: it's not about acceptance, but about submission to the SAF law, which, in fact, serves, in its form, precisely to offer security and predictability, even in an environment of disagreement and conflict, in contrast to the historical unpredictability of laws like the Zico and Pelé laws, which encouraged and resulted in projects that still exact a toll on the respective clubs and fans.

This doesn't mean that the SAF law is insensitive to club differences; quite the opposite, as I believe Rodrigo Capelo himself explains when describing the specific characteristics of each project.

And here another point of debate arises: Atlético Mineiro's project, according to information published in the press, is not similar to Fluminense's. According to reports, the latter is composed of unique elements, qualifying it as perhaps the most promising since the aforementioned law was enacted, alongside Bahia's—and, arguably, one of the most promising on the planet.

While, at Galo, the SAF remained under the control of a few fan-members, advisors, patrons, and investors (the expression is not intended as a criticism), who held millions in debt against the club, originating from loans taken out before the SAF was established, to save or enable historic sporting moments (and which potentially puts them in a situation of conflict), at Fluminense—again, based on what has been reported—an investment vehicle, a fund, is to be established, managed and administered according to legal and sub-legal norms, with resources contributed by a few dozen millionaire fans1, without prior political ties, who, despite having economic intentions (and it is good that they do), are characterized by an identity connection with the team and its history.

Something, it is worth emphasizing, unprecedented within the framework of the SAF law, without discrediting it (quite the opposite), or any significant company that controls soccer teams in Brazil or abroad.

The similarity between the two clubs' projects is evident, however, because "in all of them, the asset passes to a new owner." Yes, but not the investor. The ultimate owner is the SAF itself, of which the club that establishes it is necessarily a shareholder.

This is the essence of the SAF law: to offer an alternative to club ownership of football, historically under the purview of non-profit associations. These associations, under a political-associative logic, with very rare exceptions, have led projects that destroy value, esteem, respectability, legacy, and prospects, and have accumulated billions in liabilities.

Hence, the text's main paradox: São Paulo is not distinguished by the creativity of its model, which, in theory, would offer a progression toward full "privatization."

First, because São Paulo, like any other club, is a legal entity under private law and, therefore, does not have the public nature to be privatized.

Second, because the measures that have been implemented or presented, since the already infamous (and squire) FIDC, which failed to resolve financial and economic problems, and the alleged association with a certain Greek investor, do not integrate a structured project, conceived with a beginning, middle, and end, consistent, ultimately, with the entry of a significant investor or a public offering to its fans.

Therefore, it does not serve to "establish new governance without giving up decisions about the football business." Rather, it serves to hand over part of the foundation to resolve immediate commitments, without structural changes and with the denial of the very objective of Rodrigo Capelo's support: professionalization.

Because the club's (mis)governance—election process, various political groups, lifetime board members, selection of the board by the board (without member participation), influence of the social sector over the board, members who support other teams, including rivals, participating in the electoral process, dozens of directors, lack of transparency, etc.—will remain the same.

Third, and finally, because the quality of the project, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with the political climate (and the unprecedented public disapproval of the club's president, who used to be supported by those who, circumstantially, now disapprove of him), but with its very structure and its capacity, or inability, to solve problems, whether cyclical or structural.

The crisis in football, including São Paulo's, stems above all from the club's centuries-old and obsolete ownership model, and not from the club's lack of governance techniques and market-based professionals—initiatives that tend to evaporate on the hot plate of associative relations and will continue to simmer without a transformational solution.

For these reasons, it doesn't seem reasonable to compare the Tricolor's projects and intentions, much less to reduce the problem of football to the absence (always capable of being filled by narratives) of professionalism, an idea dogmatized by the status quo so that, as Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa put it (in "The Leopard"), in other words, changes occur so that things stay as they are. Or so that they get worse.