This again? Flamengo take São Paulo to court over Taça das Bolinhas | OneFootball

It may seem unbelievable, but Flamengo has once again gone to court to fight São Paulo over the controversial Taça das Bolinhas, a trophy the club from Rio is still complaining about with the CBF.

This week, the Rio de Janeiro club filed an appeal with the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region (TRF-3), requesting injunctive relief to prevent the CBF from handing the trophy over to Tricolor before the end of the case still ongoing in court. The information was first reported by O Globo.

The Taça das Bolinhas controversy is quite old and has dragged on for more than a decade on the national stage, with some rulings already favoring São Paulo regarding possession of the trophy, which is still under legal dispute. Even so, Flamengo is clinging to new appeals in an attempt to stop it, at least until the case is definitively closed.

The controversial honor was created by the CBF to pay tribute to the first club to win either three consecutive Brazilian Championship titles or five non-consecutive ones. The confusion arises because the Rio club claims to have achieved the feat in 1987, a year in which Brazil’s top football authority does not recognize Fla as the national champion, but rather Sport.

Thus, it emphasized that São Paulo, after winning its fifth national title in the 2007 Brasileirão, was the rightful holder of the Taça das Bolinhas.

Now, in this new request, Flamengo claims there is a risk of irreparable harm if the CBF and Caixa Econômica Federal hand over the trophy before the trial is concluded, since any eventual transfer could produce effects that would be difficult to reverse if the final decision favors Rubro-Negro.

The Rio club’s lawyers also state that other previous court decisions had already recognized the need to preserve possession of the trophy until the litigation between the parties is over. Flamengo is also contesting a Federal Court ruling that dismissed a case related to the matter without allowing broad production of evidence, arguing that this compromised its right to a full defense.

Meanwhile, the decision continues to drag on, and the Taça das Bolinhas remains in the possession of the CBF until the courts finally define São Paulo as its legitimate holder.

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