The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has formed an independent regulator to monitor its clubs’ finances from next year onwards.
The National Agency for Regulation and Sustainability of Football (ANRESF) will be responsible for overseeing, judging and applying sanctions under the new Financial Sustainability System. The framework aims to implement greater financial balance among teams and to ensure they meet their financial obligations.
Clubs will be monitored for three periods during the year, while all player transfers and contracts must be registered in the CBF’s system. In addition, a team’s short-term net debt will have to be less than 45 per cent of its relevant revenues, with warnings to be issued up to 2027 before further sanctions are deployed.
ANRESF will be empowered to implement a range of sanctions on clubs, including fines, withholding of revenue, transfer bans, point deductions and license-stripping. Meanwhile, it will also be able to provide individuals with warnings, fines, suspensions and bans from holding office.
The regulator will comprise of seven individuals who will all serve four-year terms. The CBF noted that each member has ‘an unblemished reputation and recognised economic-financial or legal expertise’.
ANRESF will be made up of two bodies known as ‘Panels’ and ‘Plenary’, with the latter able to make final and definitive judgements.
The CBF’s decision to launch a regulator was inspired by other European countries like England, France and Spain. However, one major difference is that it does not implement any restrictions on capital investments, which will ensure Brazilian soccer remains attractive to foreign investors and allowing for clubs who are run as public-limited entities, also known as Sociedades Anônimas de Futebol – Football Corporations (SAFs).
“Our financial fair play was built collaboratively, with a lot of dialogue, looking at what has been done abroad and with the active participation of clubs and federations in developing a model that meets the needs of our football,” CBF president Samir Xaud said at the CBF Academy Summit last week.
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