Just a few days before handing over the presidency of Flemish, Rodolfo Landim leaves the chair with a “feeling of mission accomplished”. It was six years as president of the Gávea club in one of its most successful eras, from which the executive said goodbye satisfied with the financial and sporting results.
In the first minutes of conversation with the InfoMoneyone of the president’s last interviews in office, Landim says he is more relaxed talking about economic results. “I’m much more comfortable than talking about player injuries,” he jokes.
With a long career at Petrobras, the executive was nominated to preside over the Board of Directors of the state-owned company in 2022 — but gave up the race — and presided over BR Distribuidora (currently Vibra), between 2003 and 2006.
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At the head of Flamengo, it was the management that reached the R$ 1 billion in recurring revenues and established a new level for operating results, in the order of R$200 million. The club enters 2025 with a cash flow compressed by expenses with athletes over the last year, motivated by the excess of injuries in 2024, and the.
Since taking over, Landim has seen the club lift 13 cups in professional football, including two Brazilian Cups and two Brazilian Championships. There were periods like 2023 when the richest club in Brazil did not touch any of the main cups.
“Of course I would like to have won more. You can always be better, but in football there is something called an opponent, and he is there working and wanting to win too”, says the executive.
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He will say goodbye to his position this year and will meet his successor after the elections on December 9th, the date of the club’s elections. His support goes to candidate Rodrigo Dunshee, who is competing in the election with Luiz Eduardo Baptista, Bap, and Maurício Gomes de Mattos.
“Another level”
Landim assumed the presidency of Flamengo after six years of management by president Eduardo Bandeira de Mello, the strong name of the restructuring that changed the club’s financial reality. It was a period marked by austerity and less sporting competitiveness, with the expectation of repaying a debt that, in 2013, was around R$750 million.
“The big change we wanted was to get out of the vicious cycle and into the virtuous cycle. We needed to start investing more to be able to try to improve Flamengo’s economic results”, recalls Landim, who although he participated in Mello’s management, ran as an opposition.
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The idea was that with structured finances — the president took over a club with a surplus and with a debt already in the region of R$ 400 million — it would be possible to reach another sporting level, which would result in more commercial exposure, better sponsorship, more revenue from box office.
That was when Flamengo assembled its star-studded 2019 squad, Brazilian and Libertadores champions under the command of Portuguese Jorge Jesus.
Recurring EBITDA of R$200 million
EBITDA is the English acronym for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Or simply how much profit a company generated from its operation alone — excluding interest from investments, loss of value of physical structures and fees.
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In the football market, it is important to look at recurring EBITDA because it is a less predictable source of revenue and can say little about the financial health of that association (it is not every day that a Vinícius Jr. is born).
In 2020, it was negative by R$57 million for Flamengo.
“In the years 2019 to 2021, our recurring EBITDA is very low. It even becomes negative. It was the period in which we had to make the big change we wanted”, says Landim.
For Landim, the bet on increasing Flamengo’s exposure was right and made it possible to reverse the operating result scenario in the second term, which he considers one of his main legacies. “As of 2022, we will change the recurring EBITDA level to a level of R$200 million.”
The value cannot be compared with any other club in Series A of the Brazilian championship, with the exception of the result of the Palm trees in 2021, when it recorded a recurring EBITDA of R$216 million in values adjusted for inflation — an atypical level in the historical series.
Part of the reason is obvious: Flamengo is a commercial cannon with no less than .
From 2021 to 2023, rubro-negro’s net revenue grew 29%, adjusted for inflation, jumping from R$997 million to R$1.29 billion, according to data from consultancy Convocados.
Under Landim’s mandate, net recurring revenue went from R$626 million to R$1.04 billion.
The executive attributes the improvements in operational and revenue results to structural changes within the club, such as the establishment of new internal processes and investments in people. “Notably, in the marketing area, revenue growth occurred through these improvements.”
Since 2019, the club’s commercial revenues have been on a growth trend that should lead to revenue in the commercial line of R$410 million in 2024, according to the projection. Among young people up to 14 years old, the club estimates that it has 30% of the fans, compared to a crowd of close to 20% taking into account all age groups.
“The greatest legacy we will leave is this”, says the executive. “A percentage that approaches 30% of market share in this population. These are people who will grow up red and black, consuming Flamengo products, going to games, buying shirts. Being part of the fans who are this solid foundation for the club’s growth.”
Reduction in cash
Landim uses operational results as the main argument for criticism of an abrupt reduction in the club’s cash flow this past year.
Cash is the part of a company’s (or, in this case, a club’s) assets that can be used to run the business, that money available to be moved in the short term.
In the case of Flamengo, which suffered from a series of injuries to important players during the year, part of this cash was used for replacements: there were four signings in the mid-year window alone and an investment of R$ 147 million for the acquisition of land in who will build his stadium.
In the third quarter of 2024, a drop of R$217 million compared to the same period in 2023, according to the club’s balance sheet.
In business, the problem with compression in this line is that the company becomes more dependent on third-party resources, such as banks.
“What supports us is a recurring EBITDA of around R$200 million. This is the great balance we have, which supports all our movements”, says Landim. “There are banks all the time wanting to lend us money. Bank only lends to those who don’t need it, and we don’t need it, we are structured”, adds the president.
Flamengo ended 2023 with its bank debt zero.
The expectation is that some measures will be taken to cushion the impact of the land purchase and hiring on next year’s balance sheet. The president says that investments in athletes may increase in value in future sales.
According to Landim, the club is also studying the structuring of a fund to sell a thousand captive seats from the new stadium, which should help to replenish part of the cash flow.
“We are creating independent budgets for Flamengo and the Stadium, because we committed to the deliberative council not to contaminate current revenues from the construction of the stadium”, he says. The replacement of values, according to Landim, will be done in 2025, once the fund structuring process has been completed.
