CBF has lost in court and can pay a fine of R$ 700 thousand per game for advertising contract

Judge Bianca Ferreira do Amaral Machado Nigri, of the 1st Regional Civil Court of Barra da Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro, determined this Tuesday (10) that the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) fulfills the contracts for the static advertising boards of the Serie A and B matches of the Brazilian Championship with Sport Promotion.

The entity that governs football in Brazil had filed a request for termination of the agreement, pointing out that the company owes it R$34.8 million.

In her order, the judge stated that “there is no way to verify effective contractual breach” and mentioned that the case is “imminently forming an Arbitral Tribunal”, which will decide the issue.

According to the decision published today, to which the Sheet had access, the CBF must comply with the current agreement and allow Sport Promotion to install its advertising signs in the stadiums “under penalty of failing to do so, incurring a fine of R$700,000 for each match in which the plaintiff [Sport Promotion] is prevented from placing their equipment”.

Sought by the report, the CBF informed through its advice that it will not comment.

Also through her advice, Roberta Baffero, CEO of Sport Promotion, regretted the position of the confederation. “This is the fourth year of the contract, and we were surprised by the way they proceeded. We had to defend ourselves, we tried several times, recently, to dialogue with the president of the CBF, but there was never even a meeting.”

The current contract between the parties was signed in 2019, when TV Globo gave up the rights to the advertising boards. With that, in a meeting held at the CBF headquarters, Sport Promotion signed individual contracts with 19 Serie A clubs —Athletico Paranaense was the exception—, valid until 2023.

By taking the case to the arbitration court, the CBF seeks to terminate all 19 contracts. The entity also wants the court to determine who has the right to trade the plates and make an agreement with the clubs.

At the beginning of this year, 11 clubs (Ceará, Atlético-MG, Coritiba, Cuiabá, Juventude, Fortaleza, Fluminense, Goiás, América-MG, Atlético-GO and Avaí) decided to terminate their contracts with Sport Promotion to close an agreement with a new company, Brax, which would have been in charge of paying the termination fines. Botafogo also broke the bond, but to display the club’s own brands.

At the time, Sport Promotion went to the common court and obtained an injunction to maintain the contracts and now awaits the decision of the arbitration court.