Boulos says Brazil’s betting ban hit football club finances as government prepares working group with 35 supporter groups

Brazil’s Secretary-General of the Presidency, Guilherme Boulos, met on Monday with representatives of 35 organized supporter groups and said the government recognizes that the end of betting sponsorships has created a financing problem for football clubs. For high-risk payment providers, the useful part is not the politics; it is the mechanism: when a major sponsor category disappears, club cash flow and sponsorship pricing have to be replaced somehow.

1. Boulos held a more than two-hour closed-door meeting in São Paulo with representatives of 35 organized supporter groups from clubs across Brazil. At the end of the meeting, he said the federal government would create a permanent working group to handle the segment’s demands.
2. One of the group’s main topics will be alternatives to the sponsorship gap created by Brazil’s ban on betting operators, which took effect in October 2026. The meeting was described as a response to the supporter groups’ request for a more direct channel with the public authorities.
3. Boulos explicitly said the shutdown of betting operations creates a financial problem for clubs. He said betting brands had sponsored “a good part” of Série A and Série B clubs, “including inflating football sponsorship,” and added that the government is “discussing measures” but is not ready to commit to a specific action yet.
4. Club executives had already been criticizing the ban, arguing that betting sponsorships directly affected their finances. The source says this type of advertising had reached the Campeonato Brasileiro as well.
5. The National Association of Organized Supporters’ Groups, Anatorg, asked President Lula (PT) to adopt an “agenda of appreciation, organization, social participation, violence prevention and guarantee of rights” for organized supporter groups. Their letter also called for a national day honoring the groups and for a revision of the General Sports Law to replace collective punishment with individual penalties in stadium violence cases.

The government says the working group will be set up in the Ministry of the Secretariat of the Presidency in the coming weeks, with participation from the Ministries of Sport, Justice and Culture. That matters because any attempt to replace betting sponsorship money will almost certainly run into the same question every PSP and acquiring team already knows: where does the volume go when one regulated revenue stream is switched off?