By Ricardo Setyon
November 23 – Just four months after the biggest football event on earth took place in Brazil, the country has lurched into a new crisis with as many as 50% of current professional players and officials unpaid. Estimates say that the wage crisis has hit up to 90% of the professional clubs in the country.
The cash crisis runs deep with not just players but coaches, technical and medical staff, banks, and multiple suppliers all owed money – with 80% of professional clubs in Brazil now on high financial alert, with many close to bankruptcy.
At the heart of problem lies in the structure of clubs as ‘Entities without Benefit Aim’. This has resulted in control of the clubs by fans, often rich and famous ones, but no imposition of a professional management structure or an aggressive commercial plan.
While care and love of the club has been there, responsibility has too often been missing.
This can be seen in the way salaries in Brazil have spiraled in the last 10 years to the levels of most European clubs.
Coaches earning €300,000 a month, physical trainers on salaries of €50-75,000, and 19-year-old players, signing contracts of €100,000 a month have become commonplace.
Cutbacks were inevitable and the first visible sign was the withdrawal by the Brazilian federation of goal line referees in a bid to save €700,000 in the 2015 season.
In a country where 40 million people are considered to live under the poverty line, having clubs where the lowest player salary is about €35,000 can only bring a financial disaster. Add to the equation that the average attendance at Brazilian Serie A matches is no more than 13,800 people per match, then problems are always going to be on the near horizon.
Match tickets for Brazilian fans, according to recent research in Europe, North and Central America and Asia, are the most expensive in the world when calculating average salary against how many tickets an average employee can buy to watch football match. A match ticket in Brazil ranges between £12.50 and £12.73 for a Serie A match. With the average per capita salary of a Brazilian employee, per week, a fan can buy 14.2 tickets. On comparison an average British fan can by 14.3 football match tickets for the Premier League.
At the end of October 2014, at least 28 clubs, among the 40 that play in Brazilian Serie A and Serie B, were late in their payments of salaries to players.
Some cannot pay what it’s called here “image rights”, a confusing and complex agreement between the player, his agent and the respective club, as a component of the athlete’s salary, based on the time he appears with the club’s jersey, be it on TV, or in ad campaigns or promotional appearances.
This hasn’t just hit small clubs but also the bigger and better supported teams have struggled with the financial flow to pay salaries and image rights.
Corinthians, the most popular club in the most important city in Latin America, who have three times been inter-continental champions won the FIFA Club World Championship in 2012, as well as Brazil and South America titles, have been forced to sell various players to Europe. Even so, and with an average home gate of 23,000, the club acknowledged in August and September, that they had trouble with some payments of image rights and other creditors.
Atletico Mineiro, are four months late on salaries, even after selling Ronaldinho to Mexican football recently.
Fluminense, who are trying to guarantee a place among the four top clubs in Brazilian Serie A and qualify for a place at the next Libertadores Cup, have three months of delayed payments.
Bahia, Gremio, Vitoria and Goiás have all “flirted” with financial trouble throughout the season.
Even the leaders of Serie A, Cruzeiro, had delays in payments, in March and April this year, and two valuable players, Vinicius Araujo and Wallace, had to be sold to generate much needed cash.
Palmeiras, have been finding the same problem, but have a different solution: a very rich president, Paulo Nobre, has already ploughed close to €40 million into the club.
Clubs like Botafogo, Portuguesa and Coritiba, are among those who are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Zagallo, Garrincha and Jairzinho’s club, Botafogo, is facing so much trouble, that after five months of not playing salaries, players are playing for the fans, and rich supporters, who donate money for their wages.
Coritiba players, where ex-Fenerbahce super star Alex leads the team, came on to the pitch before one match with a banner saying : “Dear Fan, you are our only motivation – 3 months without being paid for our salaries.And many promises in vain by our president. Together we will fight until the end.”
Strikes, delays, fights and lawyers have become commonplace in Brazil’s Serie B. At Vasco da Gama, who have secured a place in next season’s Serie A, salaries have been unpaid for two months. At Santa Cruz, after a players’ strike, August salaries have finally been paid.
Perhaps the situation is the worst at Portuguesa, the most famous club of Portuguese origin club, outside of Portugal, and located in the very center of São Paulo, Just relegated to the Third Division, with an average crowd of just 900 fans a match, Portuguesa has now put its stadium up for sale.
An attempt by players in Brazil to unite and make their demands heard, started last year with group named “Bom Senso FC”( translated: “Good and Common Sense Football Club). Among their demands was a request that players who had not been paid all their money, as agreed in their respective contracts, for more than 30 days, could have their official release from the club.
Many Brazilian football fans thought that losing 7-1 to Germany in the summer was the end of their world. Now Brazilian football could literally be watching the end of their clubs in a world that has been deserted by fans, sponsors and any hope of financial bail out.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734932557labto1734932557ofdlr1734932557owedi1734932557sni@n1734932557oytes1734932557.odra1734932557cir1734932557