The Brazilian Premier League

This time last year, in an article entitled “Bom Senso F.C. & a battle for the soul of Brazilian football”, published on Brasil Wire, I wrote about the potential for a breakaway of Brazil’s major clubs from the Jurassic power structure that controls Brazilian football, headed by national and state federations.

In 1992, England’s largest clubs split from the Football League and created the Premier League: a standalone organisation that operated with the interests of clubs in mind. It a short time it became the richest league in world football. Brazilian clubs, by comparison, can claim to hold even more influence than their English counterparts (five teams in Brazil count their fan bases in the tens of millions – Flamengo, Corinthians, São Paulo, Palmeiras and Vasco da Gama), making the need for an independent league even greater.