Why the council’s first secretary stays in post despite ethics probe

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Central do Timão

·16 December 2025

Why the council’s first secretary stays in post despite ethics probe

By Daniel Keppler / Central do Timão Editorial Team

On the night of Monday (16), the Corinthians Deliberative Council (CD) met at Parque São Jorge to analyze the proposed budget forecast for 2026, prepared by the board. In a session with a low quorum, with only 139 council members present (or 46% of the total), the proposal was approved by acclamation, with ten members of the body expressing dissatisfaction with the numbers presented.

However, the Alvinegro’s finances were not the only topic discussed at the meeting. Before deliberations on the budget forecast, the council members engaged in a lengthy debate on another issue that has been stirring the backstage at Parque São Jorge: the progress, within the Ethics and Discipline Committee (CED), of proceedings against council members and associates involved in the attempt to reinstate Augusto Melo, then suspended club president, to his position on May 31 of this year.

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Photo: Reproduction/Corinthians

Accusations and defenses

The issue was raised by council member Rubens Gomes (“Rubão”), who in his speech strongly criticized both the Ethics Committee and Romeu Tuma Júnior, president of the CD. He accused the committee of “not working,” allowing one of those involved on May 31, council member Maria Angela de Sousa Ocampos, to remain free to continue in her role as first secretary of the Council.

Regarding Tuma, Rubão said he considered it “absurd” that Tuma allowed Maria Angela to share duties at the board’s head table, even after she had played a leading role in an “attempted coup” against him. He added that this “bothered everyone” at Parque São Jorge.

For context: on May 31, it was Maria Angela who received, from council members allied with Augusto Melo who were members of the Ethics Committee, a written statement with orders to remove Tuma from the presidency of the CD, placing her in his place, in order to annul the ongoing impeachment proceedings and reinstate the then suspended president to his position at the head of the club. The plan, however, was not successful.

Several people involved in the situation, directly or indirectly, spoke out afterwards. Tuma, for example, argued that the Ethics Committee does not have the power to decide on punishments, only to recommend them to the CD plenary through a report, which is then analyzed and voted on.

He also recalled that the draft of the statute reform includes a proposal to change the Ethics Committee so that it takes on a new format, with members elected by the associates and the presence of independent auditors, aiming to make it an autonomous authority within the club. He explained that the objective of this change would be precisely to detach the committee’s work from the Council and prevent the body from continuing to be at risk of political influence in its activities.

Maria Angela herself also asked to speak. In her statement, she complained that she “had never been heard” by the Ethics Committee. It is important to point out, however, that according to Central do Timão’s investigation, the council member submitted a written defense to the committee for the disciplinary procedure she is responding to, in addition to having participated in a police interview as part of the police inquiry opened immediately after the events at Parque São Jorge on May 31. This inquiry, by the way, was closed in October, without any request for indictment by delegate Aline Ferreira Julieti Cury.

She went on, telling the council members that she “never wanted to remove” Tuma from the presidency of the CD. According to Maria Angela, she was “taken from home” that day, being coerced to go to Corinthians headquarters under the justification that Augusto Melo had received an injunction reinstating him as club president and that if she did nothing, she would be held legally responsible.

The first secretary continued, stating that all documents related to the case were already prepared and that she received “countless calls” pressuring her to act in line with the former president’s allies. She added that although she is “afraid of threats,” she is available to the Ethics Committee; that she has proof of everything she said and that, in her defense, she “would spare no one,” implicating even Parque São Jorge employees who, according to her, were involved in the case.

Rodrigo Bittar, a member of the Ethics Committee and original rapporteur of the proceedings regarding May 31, asked to speak, requesting that Tuma forward the minutes of this meeting to the committee so that the statements made could be properly investigated. According to the editorial team, the tendency is for Maria Angela to be heard in the coming days to confirm what she said before the council members.

Request for removal denied

While this article was being produced, Central do Timão received information about the progress of the disciplinary procedure regarding May 31. After all, it’s worth remembering that the last updates on the case dated back to the end of August, when the process, which was being handled jointly, was split by Tuma’s decision so that associates and council members would respond in their respective Ethics Committees.

According to the editorial team’s investigation, a few days after this split, the CD’s Ethics Committee met and decided to recommend the precautionary suspension for 60 days of 13 members of Corinthians’ association: former president Augusto Melo and council members Carlos Eduardo Melo Silva, Laercio Ferreira Victoria, Leandro Olmedila, Marcos Coelho Abdo, Maria Angela de Souza Ocampos, Mário Mello Júnior, Paulo Juricic, Paulo Rogério Pinheiro Jr., Peterson Ruan Aiello, Rodrigo Gonzalez, Ronaldo Fernandez Tomé, and Wanderson Salles.

However, this request was denied by Tuma, without being forwarded to the CD plenary for a vote. The justification was that several months had already passed since the episode and, therefore, there was no longer a need for any interim measure, which could only be granted in urgent situations, which was no longer the case. He further recommended that the Ethics Committee speed up the investigations in order to individualize the conduct and produce specific reports for each person involved.

To achieve this result, the CD vice president and Ethics Committee president Leonardo Pantaleão split the procedure, dividing the investigations among several committee members. Bittar, for example, is currently the rapporteur only for the investigations against Augusto Melo. The investigations against Maria Angela, on the other hand, were handed over to council member Claudia Carlos de Oliveira.

And after that?

Since then, three months have passed, with little practical progress in the investigations. According to Central do Timão’s investigation, the biggest challenge has been checking and comparing the dozens of defenses submitted by those involved to both Ethics Committees, from council members as well as associates. Although the committees have footage from the club on May 31, they do not have audio, making it difficult to verify the statements made by those under investigation.

Another factor delaying the investigations is a conscious posture of caution by the council members leading the committees, ensuring that all defense deadlines are being granted to the accused. The goal is to avoid any action by the rapporteurs being used as grounds for a request to nullify the proceedings in court, even if, externally, the message conveyed is one of stagnation in the work.

In addition, the editorial team found that there is concern about distinguishing, among those under investigation, who actually knew that the attempt to reinstate Augusto Melo, as proposed by the movement on May 31, was irregular, and who actually believed in the “injunction” narrative, being misled into supporting the initiative.

Within this context, and considering Maria Angela’s statements to the council members on Monday, there is an expectation that her imminent testimony to the Ethics Committee will help clarify the responsibilities of those involved, decisively speeding up the committee’s work.

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