In order to increase safety, facilitate fans’ access and combat the practice of curl, soccer clubs have been gradually adopting the facial recognition system for access to stadiums on play days.
The model was already voluntarily adopted in some squares of Brazilian football, but has passed since last month to be an obligation imposed by the General Law of Sport.
The law, in its article 148, establishes that, since June 14, stadiums with capacity over 20,000 places must “have a means of image monitoring of the turns and biometric identification of viewers, as well as there should be a technique of information, with sufficient infrastructure to enable the public image monitoring and the biometric registration of spectators.”
For stadiums with about 40,000 seats, the cost for the implementation of facial recognition is around R $ 3 million, according to estimates of professionals in the sector.
Among the large four of the state, Palmeiras and Santos were the first to implement facial biometrics at Allianz Parque and Vila Belmiro, in 2023 and 2024, respectively. São Paulo began the operation in Morumbi only in late May this year, in the defeat to Mirassol, for the tenth round of the Brazilian Championship.
Amid the fierce political dispute at the club that led to the removal of President Augusto Melo, Corinthians was the last of the group to adopt facial recognition last Sunday (13), in the defeat for Red Bull Bragantino in Neo Chemistry Arena.
In early June, the club announced the termination of the contract with Bepass, hired in April to implement facial recognition, still in the management of Augusto Melo. And he reported that the facial recognition project would be under the responsibility of the company Ligatech, with the integration of the Fiel Supporter’s platform and Onefan ticket sales system.
Despite the exchange on time, Corinthians considered a success of the system, “with a problem rate of less than 0.5%.” “It was a very challenging project that would take about three months and was executed in three weeks,” said the director of technology of the association, Marcelo Munhoes.
The public, however, was well below the average alvinegra, which was 43,471 spectators per match to the break in the calendar for the Club World Cup dispute. The game against Bragantino, it is assumed that because of the difficulty of passing nominal tickets, had 33,847 payers, the worst mark of the year.
Palmeiras has been dealing with this type of technology for longer. The Green Club began to adopt facial recognition in 100% of accesses at Allianz Parque in May 2023.
“The club detected that money chambers registered in the Avanti program, acquired tickets with the priority and benefits granted to the supporters and later resold them for values above those practiced,” Palmeiras told a statement to Sheet.
According to Alviverde, in addition to curbing the practice of curl, ensuring members of the Avanti Program the right to acquire tickets with the expected advantages, the system has helped public safety authorities. There is a partnership of the club with the São Paulo government, through the Muralha Paulista program, to identify and arrest people sought by police and find missing individuals.
“The system, with the support of Allianz Parque monitoring cameras, helped police authorities identify, for example, the Flamengo fan recently convicted of 14 years in prison for the death of Palmeirense Gabriella Anelli in 2023,” said Alviverde.
Santos’s administrative manager, Luiz Fernando Vella, said that the Baixada Santista club opted for the early implementation of the facial recognition system in Vila Belmiro, in July 2024, due to the difficulty of the operation and the benefits provided.
“The complexity involved from the communication phases to the fan, with prior registration, to implementation in steps to avoid chaos in access to the stadium. Thus, the system began to be implemented by sector and with different audiences, from the partners to the organized fans,” said Vella.
At the same time, benefits were evaluated such as the elimination of physical tickets and the fight against money changer and attempts at fraud to membership programs.
“The implementation of the system also focused on expanding security and fluidity in access, which are the main objectives of the legislation.”
Vella also pointed out that the presence of the visiting fans, which has no facial recognition register, is a crucial issue to be addressed. With each game, these fans are required to perform the entire process for access to the stadium, facing difficulties due to lack of familiarity with the system and generating data that are discarded.
The Santos manager highlighted the importance of integrating the systems of all clubs. “This procedure would facilitate the prior purchase of ticket and still generate important data for the opposing club.”
