This weekend the Brazilian Championship will begin. This year, the competition
will be named after the former FIFA president João Havelange. A total of 116
teams (a record) will take part of this year's championship. The teams are split
into four 'modules' blue (first division), yellow (second division), green and
white (third division). The catch is that even teams from the third division have
a chance to win the competition.
These are the rules:
In the first stage, each of the four modules have different rules.
The rules and fixtures of the yellow, green and white modules are still undefined.
In the blue module, all teams will play each other once, in round robin format
and the 12 best will qualify to the playoffs, where they'll join the best three
teams of the yellow module and the winner of a playoff between the champions
of the green and the white modules.
Those 16 teams will play each other in cup format (two legs) to decide the
champion.
There will be no promotion nor relegation.
This year, there will be 25 teams in the first division (the blue module):
Atlético Mineiro, Atlético Paranaense, Corinthians, Coritiba, Cruzeiro, Flamengo,
Guarani, Grêmio, Internacional, Portuguesa, Palmeiras, Ponte Preta, Santos,
São Paulo FC, Sport, Vasco, Vitória (all those teams played in the first division
last year)
Juventude and Botafogo Carioca (should have been relegated to the second
division, but the Brazilian directors invited them to stay among the 'elite')
Goiás and Santa Cruz (the champion and runner-up of last year's second
division, rightfully promoted)
América Mineiro, Bahia and Fluminense (three teams that the organisers
'invited')
Gama (see below)
The origin of the João Havelange Cup is complicated. I'll try to explain:
In 1997, Fluminense and Bahia, two of Brazil's 'big' teams, were relegated to
the second division. Since then, CBF (the Brazilian FA) and the 'Clube dos 13'
('Club of the Thirteen' - an association of the 20 most important Brazilian teams)
felt that those teams shouldn't be playing in lower divisions, and were looking
for an excuse to bring them back (since they had really bad squads, they weren't
able to gain promotion by themselves).
In 1999's championship, another 'big' team was in serious risk of being
relegated: Botafogo Carioca. The team went to the sportive justice claiming that
São Paulo FC used an ineligible player (Sandro Hiroshi) in a match where the team
from Rio de Janeiro were beaten 6x1. In a polemic decision, the tribunal not only
strapped three points from São Paulo FC, but also awarded three points to
Botafogo (decision that was illegal). Thanks to those three points, the team from
Rio de Janeiro avoided relegation, and Gama was relegated to the second division
instead.
Gama is a small team from Brasília, but has strong political backing. The team
went to common justice to complain against the decision of the sportive justice.
Gama won the lawsuit and the judges' decision guaranteed them in the first
division of the 2000 Brazilian championship.
In a pathetic attempt to 'go around' the justice decision, the 'Clube dos 13'
decided to create their own championship, the João Havelange Cup, in which
Gama wouldn't take part. They also took the opportunity to bring back to the
first division Fluminense and Bahia. But the Brazilian justice didn't accept the
move of the 'Clube dos 13' and ordered them to include Gama in the João
Havelange Cup. At the same time, FIFA suspended Gama from all competitions,
because they broke the rules of the governing body when they appealed to
common justice. So there was a deadlock: by one side, the Brazilian justice
ordered that Gama played in the first division, by the other, FIFA prohibited any
Brazilian team of playing against Gama. To solve the problem, an emergency
meeting was called and a compromise was reached, including Gama in the first
division alongside Botafogo Carioca, Bahia and Fluminense.
This year's Brazilian Championship will be organised by the 'Clube dos 13' (until
last year, it was the Brazilian FA that organised the competition). The 'Clube dos
13' directors admit that next year's competition will be completely different from
this year's, so there will be no promotion nor relegation. To avoid lawsuits from
teams of lower divisions, they created the rule that allows teams of the second
and third divisions to play in the decisive stage of the competition. It must be
said that the fans and the press (and the foreign companies that spent a lot of
money on Brazilian football) are sick and tired of those confusions. It's sure that
this year's competition will hit record low figures of attendance and technical
quality. Brazilian football's lack of organisation has become unbearable.
I know this story is very complicated and seems unbelievable in some points. So
if any of you has any questions about the João Havelange Cup or the (lack of)
organisation of Brazilian football, don't be afraid to ask me.
Anyway, the competition starts this weekend and the first stage ends in mid
November. Each week I will send to the newsgroup reports of the 8-10 most
important matches of the blue module, the tables and the top scorers.
Best regards,
Tomaz R. Alves
tomaz@trivela.com
http://trivela.com
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