CBF registers ‘boom’ in Brazilian football in the first half of 2022

Brazilian football experienced a “boom” in the first half of 2022. Compared to previous years, there was an increase in the number of new clubs and in the registration of players, intermediaries and coaches.

Data from the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation), obtained by the Sheetshow that 71 new associations were registered in state federations in the first six months of 2022 against 47 in the corresponding period in 2021. An increase of 66%.

If you analyze the numbers compared to the first half of the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic, 2019, the growth was 59% (71 to 42).

There was also an increase, between 2022 and 2019, in the number of players registered under contract (23,424 to 9,354) and of player loans between teams (3,012 to 1,929).

Neither confederation has a definitive explanation for the statistic, but there are a few theories. One of them is the repressed demand for the new coronavirus, which paralyzed football for about three months in 2020. When there was a resumption, it was without an audience and with a drop in revenue for all teams.

“The state federations have resumed their competitions in all age groups, which forces the teams to have more players. There was a change in the regulation in the Brazilians of the C and D series, with more matches”, explains Énio Gualberto, director of registration and transfers from the CBF.

In total, national football ended the first half of this year with 1,153 clubs, of which 795 are professionals and 358 are amateurs. A growth that was not constant because of the drop in 2020. In 2019, for example, there were 959 (689 professionals and 270 amateurs).

For experts heard by the report, another theory is linked to the solidarity mechanism in the sale of players. The training clubs receive a percentage each time the athlete revealed by them is traded during their career.

“This could be one of the reasons for the growth, especially in the number of registered amateur players, since the athlete’s training period, for the purpose of paying the solidarity mechanism, starts at 12 years of age”, says lawyer Eduardo Carlezzo, specializing in sports law.

CBF agrees that this is a possibility because only the formalization of the contract guarantees the right of the training club.

“Today FIFA has a much faster process for the payment. Before, it took time, sometimes it was necessary to hire a lawyer”, says Gualberto.

There is also a practical issue. It is still common for football agents to place their athletes in clubs and make arrangements for the division of the money in case of sale. But for FIFA (and, consequently, for the CBF) only the right of the association is recognized, not that of the entrepreneur. And the team may in the future receive money from the solidarity mechanism that the intermediary may feel should be theirs. Hence the creation of new teams, by the agents themselves.

Carlezzo cites the growth in the number of registered amateur athletes because it is one of the data collected by the confederation that most attract attention. In the first half of 2019, there were 3,287 active amateur contracts. Even with a pandemic, in 2020, the number rose to 6,364 and then, in 2021, to 9,462.

This year, there were 45,933 agreements. From 2019 to 2022, there was an increase of 1,397%.

There was also an explosion in the registration of intermediaries authorized by the CBF. In part, by the demand to make player trades. The number evolved in the first half of each year: 49 (2019), 124 (2020), 148 (2021) and 209 (2022).

According to CBF’s explanation, that there are more matches and championships in state federations, the consequence is that there are more coaches trained by the entity’s academy in the same period. If in 2019 there were 18, 2020 had 42; 111 certificates were issued in 2021, and in the first six months of 2022, 660.

“The issue of intermediaries is linked to this, the expectation that the professional has of being able to make this negotiation. It is the sign that there is this demand. But I also credit the image of football as a golden power. More and more young people have the dream of being athletes. There is the post-pandemic factor, which we cannot ignore either”, says the director of registration and transfers.

The statistics also appear one year after the enactment of the corporation law. And the possibility of becoming SAF (Sociedade Anônima do Futebol) has become the golden path for those who want to invest in national football.

“With the approval of the SAF, these investors felt that there is security that did not exist before. And, in addition to the act of building the club, there is the growth of this segment of those who participate in this process, which are athletes and agents”, analyzes Renê Salviano , specialist in sports management with experience at Cruzeiro.