In 2025, 65% of the clubs in Série A of the Brazilian Championship, or 13 of the 20 participants, will have a CEO, the acronym in English for the position of “Chief Executive Officer”, a type of executive director, with the nomenclature borrowed of the corporate world.
In recent years, the function has become a trend in football as a way of conveying the impression of professionalism, especially at a time when modernization and business management have become important themes in the sport.
This professional assumes responsibility for strategic and administrative management, balancing sporting and financial demands. Supervises areas such as marketing, sales, contracts and relationships with sponsors, in addition to playing an important role in hiring athletes. Its objective is to increase profitability and improve the organizational structure, without losing sight of sporting results.
However, the simple creation of this position does not always result in a real change in management. Although the presence of CEOs is often associated with the search for greater efficiency and organization, the political structure and the interference of internal groups in clubs can undermine the effectiveness of the model.
Corinthians, for example, presented professional Fred Luz as its CEO on July 3, 2024. He would be the first to hold this position in the club’s history.
“We have to bring Corinthians to a financial balance so that football does not need to be drained by other activities”, said the executive, in his presentation, when asked about the debt of more than R$2.4 billion.
His hiring, however, began to generate noise in the internal politics of Parque São Jorge, as the creation of the role of CEO would require approval by the Deliberative Council. The body is chaired by Romeu Tuma Júnior, who is at war with the club’s president, Augusto Melo, the target of two impeachment proceedings.
Thus, the board feared a defeat in the attempt to create the position — although he had been presented as CEO, officially Fred was hired as a consultant. On December 14, Corinthians announced that the professional would no longer have the autonomy of a CEO and that, from that date, he would be an external consultant, with the obligation to attend the club only twice a week.
An engineer graduated from PUC-Rio (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro), Fred is 70 years old and was previously an executive at the Americanas store chain. In football, he worked at Flamengo during the management of Eduardo Bandeira de Mello, where he served as CEO from 2014 to 2018.
His work at Gávea was one of the reasons why Corinthians went to get him. Fred, however, was not the first option. Before, the club tried to remove Marcelo Paz from Fortaleza. At the time, the professional declined the invitation and remained at the Ceará club, where he has served as CEO since 2023, when the team became a SAF (Sociedade Anônima do Futebol).
According to Paz, as a SAF, Fortaleza is less subject to the political interference that occurs in associative clubs — such as Corinthians. “[Uma SAF] It is a more autonomous institution, with better market practices, with more flexibility, which responds only to a board of directors. The CEO of an associative model, on the other hand, is subject to adverse weather conditions and political disputes,” he told Sheet.
The professional stated that he does not regret having refused Corinthians’ offer. At Fortaleza, which finished the 2024 Brazilian Championship in fourth place, he has a different autonomy than he would have at an associative club. “Many clubs have multiple directors, so sometimes the role of a director can overlap with that of the CEO.”
The position is also used for political bargaining. In December, when it chose its new president, Flamengo saw its then president Rodolfo Landim support Rodrigo Dunshee de Abranches, at the time the club’s general and legal vice-president, as his successor. In case of Dunshee’s victory, Landim would leave the presidency to become CEO.
The current candidate ended up defeated by Luiz Eduardo Baptista, known as Bap, who announced Paulo Dutra as his general director, taking over the duties of Reinaldo Belotti, who was CEO under Rodolfo Landim.
Job instability is not exclusive to teams that change management. Recently promoted to the elite of Brazilian football, Santos replaced Paulo Bracks, demoted to the role of director, for Pedro Martins.
A graduate in administration, with an MBA in football industry from the University of Liverpool, Martins will pay more attention to the football department, while Bracks will focus on administrative areas.
These changes, which could previously go unnoticed, are now closely watched by fans, as it is among the CEO’s duties to assemble the squad and seek reinforcements.
Although it has become popular in recent years, the position has existed in Brazilian football for some time. Internacional was one of the first clubs to incorporate this professional into its ranks, in 2011, when it hired Aod Cunha.
Currently, the CEO of the Rio Grande do Sul team is Giovane Zanardo. “We have a cultural issue involved, especially when it comes to the clubs’ main activity, which is football. But I see this resistance becoming less and less,” he said.
“I believe the definitive alignment will come when we have the regulations of each club, especially the associative ones, with their statutes, worked on and modified based on the needs for advances in governance that the market is demanding”, predicted Zanardo.
