Flamengo president slams exclusion, claims: "Libra sides with Palmeiras" | OneFootball

Flamengo president Luiz Eduardo Baptista, known as Bap, made harsh criticisms of the Brazilian Football League (Libra) during an interview with the UOL portal.

According to him, the Rio club has been excluded from the league’s important decisions, which, in the director’s words, would be dominated by Palmeiras’ interests. “Libra is green. Libra is all green. Libra supports Palmeiras,” he said.

The rubro-negro president also denounced a possible conflict of interest within the league’s structure.

“(André) Sica is Palmeiras’ lawyer. His family has worked for Palmeiras for a long time, the firm that filed Libra’s appeal against Flamengo is Sica’s firm. That’s an obvious conflict. If I could go back in time, I would never have agreed to building Libra. Libra is green. Libra is all green. Libra supports Palmeiras. Sica is Palmeiras’ lawyer. He became a lawyer for other clubs. He represents other clubs that are in Libra.”

💡 Understand the “beef”

The crisis between Flamengo and Libra began at the start of 2025, when the Rubro-Negro requested a larger share in the broadcast rights deal with Globo, citing its market strength.

With no agreement between the clubs, the dispute ended up in court, and Flamengo managed to freeze R$ 77 million from TV revenue. Since then, the backstage atmosphere has been tense, with public criticism from Palmeiras president Leila Pereira.

🫵 More accusations

Bap countered accusations that Flamengo was acting selfishly. For him, that image was unfairly constructed by other clubs.

“I see this as much more an outward narrative than reality,” he said.

He also criticized the lack of discussions about the development of Brazilian football in Libra meetings.

“In these ten months that I’ve been in contact with the Libra folks, there hasn’t been a single meeting where any item on the agenda discussed Brazilian football,” he pointed out.

Finally, Bap lamented the stance of clubs like Palmeiras and São Paulo, which allegedly vetoed Flamengo’s participation in the integration committee with Liga Forte Futebol (LFU), another group of clubs discussing the future of the organization of Brazilian football.

“Who’s selfish? Who’s exclusionary? In truth, it’s other clubs that are exclusionary toward Flamengo,” he concluded.

🗣️ The response

Lawyer André Sica was quick to rebut the Flamengo president’s accusations.

In a conversation with ESPN Brazil, André Sica, a partner at the firm CSMV Advogados, which represents several clubs from both Libra and Liga Forte União (LFU), responded to Bap’s statements.

“I’m flattered by BAP’s words, but I imagine he doesn’t have access to all the information. My father passed away in 2001 and was an engineer. My mother is a French teacher. Therefore, it is not true that anyone in my family has worked for Palmeiras. Only I have that honor,” Sica said, before concluding.

“My firm works for more than 30 clubs across the country. I also have the honor of working for Red Bull since 2011, for Cruzeiro since the start of the SAF, for Bahia since the purchase by the City Group, as well as many other giants, both from Libra and from the LFU,” he noted.

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

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