São Paulo axes youth basketball, board members outraged | OneFootball

In the series of measures that the new president Harry Massis has been promoting, São Paulo officially ended the under-18 and under-20 basketball categories last week, which also hasn't had a professional team for almost a year.

In a massive financial crisis, the club is undergoing a strong administrative restructuring aimed especially at cutting costs. With the end of the basketball base, the Tricolor is expected to save a little over R$ 2 million for its coffers.

The expenses in the categories included salaries of players and technical staff, travel expenses, maintenance of structure, among other unnecessary costs for São Paulo. With the end of professional basketball last year, it makes no sense to maintain youth categories in the sport. The board intends to use the money for investments in football.

The decision has already been communicated to the Tricolor athletes who were training in the youth categories, definitively ending the cycle of these categories at São Paulo, in a change aimed at reorganizing sports modalities in the club, prioritizing projects with competitive continuity and sporting return.

THERE WERE ANGRY ADVISORS

But São Paulo never ceases to surprise us. With the announcement of the end of basketball activities, some advisors even made threats, shouted, and revolted against the decision. Some of them still pleaded for the return of all basketball categories to the Tricolor.

In May 2025, the club decided to end professional basketball, which had resumed activities in 2018, achieving some success. Besides two runner-up finishes in the Brazilian championship, São Paulo was the Paulista champion in 2021 and the Americas Champions League champion in 2022.

Even so, the Tricolor was unable to turn these achievements into profit and decided to end activities in the sport.

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