Shame on you!

By: André | March 11th, 2009

Sometimes I feel ashamed of Flamengo’s problems. A team with about 40 million fans isn’t supposed to be drowned on debts (around R$242million, or US$100million) and should not lose an easy match against the (sorry guys) little Resende for the Rio State Semi Finals. The board isn’t even capable of getting any sponsor that wants to invest on the team (I know it is crises time and that even Man U hasn’t get their new sponsor deal, but they are asking 70 million and all we need is US$8.000.000 a year) and since December 31st the team is surviving from nothing.

Besides that, we have for 25 years Petrobras (the longest on Brazil, maybe on the world) as our sponsor and the board does not want to injury the relationship. So even if they don’t pay, as happened on January, February and until today, the team will still use their name on the shirt.

Being a governmental company, Petrobras has a lot of bureaucracy to pay the team and one of them is that the club fulfills his obligations with the government (impossible, once great part of Flamengo debt is from government taxes and social security). Every year is the same history: Flamengo fights against the time and against the government to get about R$20million (which I consider a small value considering the size of the club and the range of his name).

It would be easier to get money from a private company, wouldn’t it?

But you know one thing lead to another. Debs and less income money become late payments (the players have not received salaries this year), less commitment from the players, the end of their love and passion to our colors, unhappy supporters and defeats.

That’s was clear to everybody on February 28th during the humiliating defeating on Maracanã against Resende (1×3). As consequence of that, we lost the chance to fight for the title and now we have to win the second round to keep the dream of the fifth 3 times champions.

After that, we have already played 2 games, winning both of them. 5-0 and 3-1. I really hope that that absurd is only a pontual problem and not something that we’ll face during the whole year once again.

Some of the problems, such as Marcelinho, have already gone. A nice kickoff.