A Football Benchmark analysis, co-authored with Pedro Martins
Law No. 14.193/2021, widely known as the SAF Law, marked a turning point in Brazilian football. Introduced in 2021, the legislation allows clubs to transition from traditional member associations into corporate entities, fundamentally reshaping how they are governed, financed, and owned.
The reform arrived amid considerable anticipation. SAF was widely perceived as a mechanism through which historically significant clubs could overcome chronic insolvency, attract investment, and reverse years of sporting decline driven by structural mismanagement. For many supporters and observers, the shift to a corporate model became synonymous with the promise of rapid recovery.
This article, co-authored with Brazilian football executive Pedro Martins, reflects on the early years of the SAF framework and examines why legal and financial reform alone cannot define sporting success in Brazilian football.
In 2026, Brazilian football will enter the fifth operating year of the SAF era. While ownership structures, revenues and spending patterns have evolved quickly, the underlying challenge remains familiar: success in Brazilian football has long been shaped by volatility, short-termism and fragmented decision-making, and the belief that structural change alone can shortcut sporting outcomes continues to influence how clubs approach the SAF transition.
The SAF framework and the legacy of volatility
For decades, Brazilian football operated under a volatile associative model in which club management was tied to shifting political alliances and rotated frequently. This instability meant that the group of champions changed often, allowing around a dozen clubs to occupy the spotlight at different times. This pattern reinforced the perception that mid-budget teams could unexpectedly, through a series of good decisions in a season, break through and win major competitions. In reality, many of these clubs were merely filling the temporary void left by larger institutions in crisis.
This narrative is arguably embedded in the Brazilian collective imagination and influences decision-making at important clubs to this day. There is still a belief that isolated technical decisions, even if disconnected from a broader organisational framework, can produce success.
The SAF Law was designed to address these structural weaknesses. It created a regulatory framework allowing clubs to operate as limited companies, with the objective of strengthening governance, improving financial management and attracting new investment. Among its provisions, the legislation enables clubs to transfer assets into a new entity free of legacy liabilities, issue private bonds, and benefit from a more favourable tax structure compared to the traditional associative model.
In the 2025 Campeonato Brasileiro season, six clubs in Série A operate under the SAF model, representing 30% of the division. In Série B, nine clubs are structured as SAFs, accounting for 45%. Combined, this results in 15 SAF clubs out of the 40 competing across Série A and Série B, equivalent to 37.5% of clubs in Brazil’s top two tiers.
Within this group, four have attracted foreign investors: Botafogo FR (John Textor via Eagle Football Group), CR Vasco da Gama (777 Partners, which ultimately lost control of the club due to legal issues), EC Bahia (City Football Group) and Coritiba FBC (Grupo Independiente Del Valle, as a minority shareholder). RB Bragantino, controlled by Austria’s Red Bull GmbH, were already operating as a limited company under the previous corporate structure.
Financial growth without cultural transformation
It is undeniable that Brazilian football is undergoing dramatic change. One of the most significant developments of recent years, reinforced by the SAF framework, has been the rapid and aggressive influx of investment. The arrival of new owners, together with updated television contracts and substantial sponsorship from betting companies, has driven a sharp increase in spending on salaries and transfer fees over the past four years.
However, the diligence, decision-making quality and strategic logic expected to accompany this new wave of ownership have not translated into a deeper cultural transformation. We still observe only isolated cases of progress, while the long-standing culture of volatility continues to define the majority of the league.
In the absence of an organised league capable of enforcing governance standards, ensuring financial oversight, or introducing sustainability rules, only a small number of clubs were able to advance independently. Flamengo and Palmeiras stand out as the clearest examples. Through more structured administrative practices, both strengthened their revenue models, reduced debt, and established a consistent presence as the top of Brazilian and South American competitions. Their simultaneous participation in the Série A title race and the Copa Libertadores final in 2025 was not coincidental. It reflected deliberate, long-term strategic choices rather than short-term organisational decisions.
Average operating revenues, excluding player trading and extraordinary income, of Série A clubs increased by 73% between 2015 and 2024, reaching a record €69.3m. Growth has been driven primarily by matchday income supported by 2014 World Cup stadium infrastructure, rising commercial revenues and prize money from international competitions.
Brasileiro Série A now ranks sixth globally by average operating revenue, positioned just behind the European “Big Five” leagues. While it remains at a significant distance from them, with France’s Ligue 1, the closest comparator, still generating more than double the Brazilian average in 2023/24, Série A now sits ahead of several established European competitions, including the EFL Championship, Eredivisie, Primeira Liga and Belgian Pro League.
Player trading within an evolving financial landscape
Player trading is a crucial source of income in the business model of Brazilian clubs. Over the past five seasons (2020/21 to 2024/25), they generated €1.5bn in transfer income, averaging €310m per year. During this period, Brasileiro Série A ranked eighth among all leagues in five-year aggregate transfer income, behind the “Big Five” European leagues, the Portuguese Primeira Liga and the English Championship.
Brazilian clubs also increased their investment in the transfer market, reaching almost €500m in the 2024/25 season. Major acquisitions have included the purchase of Vitor Roque from FC Barcelona to SE Palmeiras for €25.5m, Thiago Almada from Atlanta United FC to Botafogo FR for €19.5m and Carlos Alcaraz from Southampton to CR Flamengo for €18m. The seasons analysed do not include the more recent transfers of Danilo to Botafogo FR and Samuel Lino to CR Flamengo, both above the €20m threshold.
In addition, the league generated a positive cumulative five-season net transfer balance of approximately €400m, the sixth highest worldwide. At club level, Botafogo FR, SE Palmeiras and CR Flamengo were the top spenders over the past five seasons, while the trio of top earners included SE Palmeiras, SC Corinthians and Club Athletico Paranaense, with these three also recording the strongest cumulative net balances.
Redefining success beyond SAF
As the industry matures, a more nuanced understanding of club success is likely to emerge. In a country historically accustomed to frequent turnover among champions, it might become necessary to recognise that the top will increasingly be occupied by only a few clubs. The real challenge for the others will be to position themselves within this new competitive landscape. The search for ways to compete with wealthier organisations should be understood not as a limitation, but as a meaningful and stimulating pursuit. There is genuine value in the process of defining strategy.
The Brazilian football industry still needs to deepen its understanding of what it means to build a coherent sporting project. Even the positive examples often revolve around clubs that began paying their bills on time and introduced more rational back-office operations. What remains missing is a more integrated and genuinely football-centric logic. The notion that a club is well managed simply because it is debt-free remains a primary, and insufficient, benchmark for an industry as significant as Brazilian football.
Once the meaning of success is reframed, it becomes easier to see the breadth of the strategic space ahead. The challenge lies in understanding the club’s purpose within existing constraints – financial, logistical, or structural – and building coherence from them, breaking with the traditional model of handing a club’s future to a rotating cast of arbitrary decision-makers.
In an industry where clubs often mimic one another, competitive advantage will belong to those capable of establishing a sporting culture that clearly expresses a strategic positioning. The development of proprietary evaluation criteria, the generation of internal intelligence, and the systematic prioritisation of processes over individuals are defining characteristics of strong football organisations. In practical terms, this is reflected in structured decisions with direct impact on the pitch, such as logical selection of coaches, the profile and level of activity and investment in the transfer market, and the rationale guiding the recruitment and development of young players.
It is no coincidence that structured multi-club organisations, such as City Football Group and Red Bull, have established themselves in the Brazilian industry. The value of developing specialised knowledge of the local market, from talent identification to a deeper contextual understanding of the competitive environment, represents a significant and tactical advantage, particularly in a country whose football ecosystem remains under-analysed, even by domestic actors.
Ultimately, the SAF era will only fulfil its promise if the industry moves from legal reform to structural transformation. New ownership may have opened the door, but the next stage will depend on clubs capable of developing a long-term vision and translating it into sporting projects grounded in intelligence, coherence, and strategic discipline. These are the organisations most likely to shape the future of Brazilian football.
Football Benchmark supports clubs, investors, and stakeholders through ad-hoc strategic advisory and data-driven analysis across club finance and operations, player valuation, youth football and overall market dynamics, helping decision-makers navigate an increasingly complex and competitive landscape.
Pedro Martins is a Brazilian football executive with an MBA in Football Industries from the University of Liverpool (UK). He has worked in leadership roles at the Federação Paulista de Futebol, Athletico Paranaense, Ferroviária, Cruzeiro SAF, Botafogo SAF, Vasco da Gama SAF, Santos FC.
