Transfer ban and Arena: SAFIEL to back Corinthians if SAF passes

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Central do Timão

·7 January 2026

Transfer ban and Arena: SAFIEL to back Corinthians if SAF passes

By Daniel Keppler / Central do Timão Editorial Team

The behind-the-scenes at Corinthians remain busy in these first days of 2026. After the revelation of important details regarding the contract between the club and Caixa Econômica over the debt from the construction of the Neo Química Arena—including the guarantees offered and various administrative restrictions imposed on the club—a proposal submitted by SAFIEL promises to help resolve the situation.

According to a statement published by the group on its social networks this Tuesday (6), a document was sent to the presidents of the club’s board and internal councils: Osmar Stabile, Romeu Tuma Júnior (Deliberative Council), Miguel Marques e Silva (Advisory Council), and Haroldo Dantas (Fiscal Council), presenting an addendum to the memorandum of understanding delivered to the club in October.

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The content of the statement is divided into four parts. In item 1, SAFIEL emphasizes to Corinthians that the proposal is valid for 90 days from its delivery to the club and therefore must be answered by the 26th of this month. In item 2, the group recalls its participation in the public hearing on the statute reform, where it made itself available to collaborate but reportedly did not receive a response regarding an invitation to participate in a working group on the subject.

Item 3, in turn, contextualizes the situation faced by the club in relation to the agreement signed with Caixa in 2022, whose revealed details show that Corinthians depends on the bank’s approval to initiate any judicial or extrajudicial recovery process, and is also not allowed to change its administrative structure by establishing a SAF on its own.

Finally, item 4 complements the previous one with actual proposals to the club. Through the addendum, SAFIEL committed to making two financial contributions to the club, aiming to resolve two important issues that have been widely discussed internally: the transfer ban, which prevents the registration of new male football players; and the club’s debt with Caixa for the stadium in Itaquera.

These contributions would be of different natures and, according to the offer, would occur at different moments in the relationship between Corinthians and SAFIEL. In the first, the group committed to granting a loan to the club to settle the debt with Santos Laguna, from Mexico, for the signing of defender Félix Torres—a pending issue that resulted in the transfer ban against the club in the second half of 2025. This loan would be made after the memorandum of understanding is signed by the club’s board.

The second contribution relates to Corinthians’ debt from the construction of the Neo Química Arena, which currently stands at around R$ 650 million and would be settled by SAFIEL under certain conditions: the signing of the memorandum, the completion of an audit “without obstructive risks,” and the approval of the transformation of the football department into a SAF by the club’s internal bodies.

After this stage, and therefore before the public offering of shares by the entity, the amount would be contributed to clear the club’s debt with the bank, thus eliminating the guarantees and contractual restrictions that currently limit administrative decisions and the full financial management of Corinthians. Both of SAFIEL’s anticipated aids, according to the proposal, would be structured through their own documents, setting deadlines and obligations for both parties.

Since receiving the memorandum of understanding in October last year, the Corinthians board has not officially responded to SAFIEL regarding the offer. Internally, the only movement regarding the proposal was its forwarding to the club’s compliance department, which returned an analysis with some red flags that were later addressed by the group through a statement on social networks. There was also a meeting scheduled with the board, which was supposed to take place in November, but it was canceled and not rescheduled. In December, the initiators were invited to participate in a public hearing of the club’s Deliberative Council on the SAF topic within the scope of the statutory reform.

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