Court clears Corinthians statute reform, limits General Assembly | OneFootball

The São Paulo courts deemed valid the call for Corinthians’ Extraordinary General Assembly (AGE) scheduled for September 19, which will address changes to the club’s bylaws. The ruling, however, determined that the proposals presented to members must be exactly those approved by the Deliberative Council (CD).

The ruling was handed down this Friday (11) by Judge Rafael Viotti Schlobach, of the 3rd Civil Court of the Tatuapé Regional Forum, in a lawsuit brought by Ademir de Carvalho Benedito, Alexandre Husni, and Guilherme Gonçalves Strenger against Corinthians and Leonardo Pantaleão.

Photo: José Manoel Idalgo/Agência Corinthians

The discussion began after the Deliberative Council rejected, by 93 votes to 60, the main text of the bylaw reform drafted by the committee responsible for the project. Even with the overall proposal rejected, the councilors decided to continue the meeting and vote individually on the highlighted issues.

After that, 136 councilors took part in the vote that decided to continue the proceedings. There were 79 votes in favor and 57 against. The Council reviewed 15 issues and approved 11 changes, while four others were rejected.

Among the rejected topics were proposals related to a possible SAF, reelection to the Deliberative Council, the creation of the position of Parque São Jorge manager, and rules for business corporations.

First Assembly was canceled

The first AGE, which had been scheduled for June 20, had been suspended by a decision of the São Paulo Court of Justice. In August, Deliberative Council president Romeu Tuma Jr. formally canceled that call and published a new notice, this time for September 19.

The court found that the first call had become moot because it had already been canceled by the club itself. Therefore, there was no longer any basis to declare null and void a notice that no longer existed. However, the judge reviewed the new call because it was part of the same bylaw reform process.

Proposals may not be changed

The main point of the ruling concerns how the topics will be presented to the members. The judge found that the new call corrected part of the problem in the first notice by removing the main text rejected by the CD and keeping the topics that had been approved by the councilors.

However, the ruling identified differences between what was approved by the Council and the content presented in the new notice. As an example, it cited Question 15, which dealt with a transitional electoral rule for 2026, but was allegedly expanded in the notice to address, in general terms, terms of office resulting from vacancies.

Another example was Question 11. The matter approved by the Council was related to the “Budget for the CD,” while the notice presented it as the “Administrative independence of the Deliberative Council.”

In light of this, the judge determined that the proposals and voting ballots for the AGE must correspond exactly to what was previously resolved by the Council.

In practice, the Presidency and the Board of the Council will not be allowed to substantially change the content of the proposals, include new topics, or remove conditions that were approved by the councilors. If that happens, the AGE’s resolution may be considered null and void.

What topics will be voted on

The ruling recognized the validity of the assembly call to discuss the changes approved by the Council. The topics include voting rights for football members (Fiel Torcedor), the composition of the Ethics Council, the waiting period to vote, the electoral system of the Deliberative Council, the election of the board in one or two rounds, the composition of the CD, rules on the body’s budget, how often financial statements are issued, the composition of the Advisory Council (Cori), and a transitional rule related to the 2026 election.

Although the Council approved 11 changes, the notice lists ten topics because two similar matters were combined into a single item.

The decision, therefore, does not prevent the Assembly from taking place nor does it invalidate its call. What the Judiciary determined is that the vote must take place within the limits established by the Deliberative Council.

The ruling may still be appealed. The judge ordered that the decision be communicated to the appellate judge responsible for the interlocutory appeal pending before the 4th Private Law Chamber of the São Paulo Court of Justice.

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This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.