Corinthians reaches marquee value in Brazilian football

First Brazilian club to reach R$ 1b in value

As a football fan, I don’t like Corinthians. In particular, due to a city rivalry between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, I’m not very fond of São Paulo teams. But as an Economics student, I’m in awe at how there’s a huge distance between São Paulo teams and Rio de Janeiro teams when it comes to finances, and in that aspect I must take my hat off to them. Most of it due to Corinthians board and their ability to push their team at higher grounds when it comes to money.

If finally getting their first Copa Libertadores title after more than a hundred years without a continental title wasn’t enough, weighing in that this season barely started, Corinthians also got some pretty good news when it comes to finances.

Last Monday (July 16), BDO RCS Independent Auditors, who are known in Brazilian football for doing research over teams value, receipt gathering and debt evolution over the years, announced that Corinthians was the first team to break the R$ 1b (€ 400m) value in Brazilin football history, also being leaders in their 17 teams rank.

It must be highlighted that their Copa Libertadores title didn’t count on their research, which did take into credit their 2011 patrimonial balances as well as some of their 2012 numbers at the beginning of the year. Another fact is that in a interval of 8 years, Corinthians was the team which saw their value grows the most – R$ 720m (€ 288m), followed by Flamengo (R$ 469m/€ 188m) and São Paulo (R$ 431m/€ 172m).

The study also says that the 17 clubs used in the research mount up to R$ 5.38b; that means that roughly 20% of clubs value came from Corinthians. Another highlight is the value composition: 51% of the R$ 1b comes from Corinthians supporters, which stands at 30 million people according to last studies, followed by 27% from receipts and 22% from market.

If Corinthians was the only Brazilian team featured in F.C. Business Top 25 most valuable football clubs list in May this year, we can easily see them featuring in major steps in the next few years if their growth keeps that pace.

As a football fan, the scenario isn’t much bright because we can also see Brazilian League becoming an EPL in terms of competitiveness, with only 5 teams winning the title in the past 20 years. But the worst case scenario would be seeing Flamengo righting their ship, and closing their distance to Corinthians, which would make the Brazilian League a copycat of La Liga. But that’s for another topic. As it stands, I’ll take my footballing passion aside and congratulate Corinthians for their feat.