The Brazilian national team "became a gold mine for businesses" and the Brazilian Football Federation (CBF) as secret contracts revealed how the federation "auctioned the team in exchange for millions of dollars in commission" to its chiefs and away from the Brazilian Internal Revenue Service, according to Jamil Chade of ESTADÃO. Since '06, the CBF has "maintained" a financial contract with ISE, a Cayman Islands-based subsidiary of Saudi Arabian holding company Dallah Al Baraka, for the national team's participation in friendlies. In '11, former CBF President Ricardo Teixeira "renewed this contract from 2006 for ten years" while making alterations that "exploited the national team brand to all its limits." The new contract stated that the team "would always enter the field with the same main players, without the possibility of ever giving promising young talent a chance to play or to use friendlies to prepare the Olympic team." Article 9.1 of the contract said, "The CBF will guarantee and ensure that the players of Team A who are playing in official competitions will participate in any and every match." By following this stipulation, the CBF would be paid $1.05M per game. A violation of this agreement "means significant payments." The agreement then said that all of the national team's transmission rights, copyrighted or otherwise, would be "under control" of ISE. Any violation of this "means the CBF would have to pay a fine" of $1M. The agreement also "ended with a very clear term: confidentiality." It said, "All the terms and conditions of this agreement will be treated by the parties as confidential information and neither of the parties will disclose them" (ESTADÃO, 5/16).
IT'S NOT SO BAD: In São Paulo, Leite & Prósperi reported CBF President Marco Polo Del Nero "defended the contract" made by the Teixeira administration with ISE. He said that the agreement "was established in a time where the players of the Brazilian team were providing losses and that, today, the body does not run the slightest risk of going in the red when the team enters the field." Del Nero: "The contract, in a possible way, makes us abide. When we arrived, this contract was already there, we have to abide. I won't say that this contract is so bad. When we played here in Brazil, it didn't reach this amount ($1.05M). Today, how much is that? Is R$3 million a little bit [of money]? If you analyze it, it's a good contract today" (ESTADÃO, 5/16).
