December 30 – Fluminense have been spared the embarrassment of being the first team in Brazilian Serie A history to be relegated the season after having won the championship.
The club has had a remarkable escape. Having finished in the bottom four and a relegation position, Sao Paulo club Portuguesa were subsequently deducted four points for fielding an ineligible player.
The points deduction dropped Portuguesa into the relegation positions and lifted Fluminese out of them. Portuguesa originally finished with 48 points and qualified to play in next year’s Copa Sudamericana, but with the deduction it fell to 44 points, two behind Fluminense.
Portuguesa appealed the sanction but Brazil’s Superior Court of Sporting Justice confirmed by unanimous vote that the penalty would stand.
Portuguesa made their mistake in the final game of season when they played midfielder Heverton for 15 minutes in the final game of the season – he had sat out only one game of a two match suspension.
Portuguesa’s defense was that they had been wrongly advised by their lawyers that it was only a one-match suspension and that they believed Heverton was eligible to play. They also claimed that the suspension should not have taken effect immediately as the player’s trial was too close to the final round and that the document announcing the player’s penalty was only published a day after the final match was played.
Fluminense have been lucky before. In 1999 they won Serie C and were promoted to Serie B only to subsequently benefit from an unanticipated reform of the league format which lifted them straight into Serie A.
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