Due to historical peculiarities and the large geographical size of the country, Brazil has a relatively short history of nationwide football competitions. The main and most prestigious competitions were the state championships, run in each of the Brazilian states.[2] The 1937 Torneios dos Campeões, won by Atlético Mineiro, was the first national tournament with fully professional football clubs in Brazil. It was played between the champions of each state in the year and, in August 2023, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) officially recognized the tournament as a Brazilian championship, thus conferring to Atlético Mineiro the status of first national champions of Brazil. In 1959, with the advancements in civil aviation and air transport and the need to appoint a Brazilian representative to the first edition of the Copa Libertadores, a nationwide tournament created, Taça Brasil. In 1967, the Torneio Rio-São Paulo was expanded to include teams from other states, becoming the Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa, which was also considered a national tournament. The first tournament downright called a national championship was held in 1971, also won by Atlético Mineiro, although it was only referred to as "Campeonato Brasileiro" starting in 1989.
Anglo-Brazilian Charles Miller introduced Brazil to football association rules to Brazil in 1894 upon his return from England, where he attended college and discovered the sport, and it soon became popular in the country. In 1902 Miller helped to organize the Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball (current Campeonato Paulista), Brazil's first football league. The league only played in the area of the State of São Paulo.[10] Due the size of Brazil, economic and geographical challenges, and lack of transport infraestructure, the creation of a fully national league or championship was almost impossible. Instead the rest of Brazil followed São Paulo's example and founded state football leagues for each of the federative units of Brazil.[11] The state leagues remained the main and most prestigious championships, and were considered the equivalent of national leagues of other countries.
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One of the first experiences of organizing a club championship at national level was the Torneio dos Campeões de 1920 [pt], competed between the winners of the Campeonato Paulista (Paulistano), Campeonato Carioca (Fluminense) and Campeonato Gaúcho (Brasil de Pelotas).[16] A second edition was done in the 1937 Torneios dos Campeões, won by Atlético Mineiro. It was the first with fully professional clubs. In August 2023, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) officially recognized the tournament as a Brazilian championship, thus conferring to Atlético Mineiro the status of first national champions of Brazil.[17]
The Taça Brasil was introduced in 1959,[18] and ran until 1968.[19] The Taça Brasil was created to select a representative for the newly created Copa Libertadores de América, and it was intended to become Brazil's new national competition, replacing the Campeonato Brasileiro de Seleções Estaduais.[18] The Taça Brasil was a pure knockout tournament, with the participants selected from the champions of the state championships.[18] The first champion was Bahia which defeated Pelé's Santos in a remarkable underdog victory. Breaking the Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo hegemony in national football.[20]
In 1968, the delay in closing the 1968 Taça Brasil made CBD use the Robertão to determine the Libertadores representatives. With the extinction of the Taça Brasil, the Robertão, officially named by CBD as "Taça de Prata" (Silver Cup) remained the top Brazilian championship the following two years.[22]
Following Brazil's third world title at the 1970 FIFA World Cup, president Emílio Médici decided to better organize Brazilian football. The Brazilian military government had become heavily envolved in football as a way to promote the legitimization of the military regime, national unity and patriotism, as well as part of the Programa de Integração Nacional [pt], which sought the geographical integration of Brazil.[23][24] In a meeting with the CBD and the club presidents in October 1970, it was decided to create the following year a Brazilian championship contested by twenty teams, inspired by the national tournaments in the European nations. The first edition was named "Campeonato Nacional de Clubes" ("National Championship of Clubs"), was held in 1971 and won by Atlético Mineiro.[25] The top division was named "Divisão Extra" (Extra Division), while a newly created second division earned the "Primeira Divisão" (First Division) name. The second division was a fusion of the already existing Torneio Centro-Sul and the Copa Norte-Nordeste, with teams from regions with less expression in national football and weaker teams from the main footballing states of Brazil. The first champion was Villa Nova, from the town of Nova Lima, Minas Gerais.[26] There wasn't, however, a system of promotion and relegation. The clubs were instead selected to participate in either division according to their performances at their respective state championships.[25]
In the next few years, due the influence of the military regime, the number of clubs that participated in the competition steadily incresed.[23] The inaugural edition, inspired in the European leagues, had 20 teams. The second edition in 1972 expanded to 26 clubs and the second division was also extinct and its clubs were now participating in an unified national championship. The 1973 edition had 40 clubs. By the 1979 edition, the number of clubs participating peaked, with a total of 92 teams. From 1975 onwards, the competition was offically named "Copa Brasil" (Brazil Cup).
In 1987, CBF announced it was not financially able to organize the Brazilian football championship, a mere few weeks before it was scheduled to begin. As a result, the thirteen most popular football clubs in Brazil created an association, called Clube dos 13, to organize a championship of their own. This tournament was called Copa União and was run by the 16 clubs that eventually took part in it (Santa Cruz, Coritiba and Goiás were invited to join). CBF initially stood by the Club of the 13 decision. However, weeks later, with the competition already underway, and under pressure from football clubs excluded from the Copa União, CBF adopted a new set of rules, which considered the Copa União part of a larger tournament, comprising another 16 teams. According to that new set of rules, the Copa União would be dubbed the Green Module of the CBF championship, whereas the other 16 teams would play the Yellow Module. In the end, the first two teams of each Module would play each other to define the national champions and the two teams that would represent Brazil in the Copa Libertadores in 1988. However, that new set of rules was never recognized by the Club of the 13 and largely ignored by most of the Brazilian media, who concentrated their attention in the independent league, eventually won by Clube de Regatas do Flamengo. The eventual final tourney was set to have Sport and Guarani, from the yellow module, and Flamengo and Internacional from the green one. It never materialized, however, as Flamengo and Internacional refused to partake in it. As a result, Sport and Guarani played each other, with the first one winning the Championship for 1987 and both going on to represent Brazil in the 1988 Copa Libertadores. Although Flamengo has attempted to gain ownership of the championship multiple times through the justice system, Sport remains recognized by both CBF and FIFA as 1987 Champions.[30][31] Part of the football fans in Brazil still consider Flamengo as the Brazilian Champion of 1987, or at least co-champions.[32]
After the chaos caused by the 1987 edition, the CBF and Club of the 13 reached an agreement on how to organize the next year's edition of the Copa União. The 1988 Campeonato Brasileiro reduced the number of participants, to hold a more competitive championship with just 24 teams. Furthermore, for the first time, the competition had a true promotion and relegation system, as required by FIFA. The last four placed in the first division (Bangu, Santa Cruz, Criciúma and America) fell to the second division in 1989, being replaced by Inter de Limeira and Náutico, respectively champion and runner-up of the 1988 Special Division.[33] The 1989 edition was the first to use the terminology "Série A", inspired by the Italian league system.
The Brazilian Championship had already been tested with countless different formulas and names, being quite bloated and confusing in several editions. However, from 1987 onwards, with the creation of the Copa União, there was a decrease in the number of participants in the championship. As a result, several clubs from less popular regions that entered the national competition because they were state champions no longer faced clubs considered "big" and traditional, and as a result, some associations were even at risk of becoming extinct. To calm the discontent of these clubs and smaller federations, the CBF was forced to create a national "cup" along the lines of the European ones. In 1989, the entity created a secondary national competition, the Copa do Brasil, which allowed clubs from all states to enter.[35] With the creation of this new tournament, the CBF decided, for the first time, to officially name the country's main national football tournament the "Campeonato Brasileiro", to make it clear which was the national tournament in Brazil that would give its winner the title of Brazilian champion and, also, to avoid confusion between "Copa do Brasil" and "Copa Brasil", one of the old names used between 1975 and 1980.[35][36]
Without the CBF, the Clube dos 13 decided to organize Brazilian Championship, which became known as the Copa João Havelange. To avoid further legal problems, the championship would encompass all divisions. This edition became controversial for its organization: 116 clubs from all the three divisions, divided in four "modules" organized as the championships before the Sandro Hiroshi case. The Blue Module, equivalent to the Série A, Yellow Module, equivalent to the Série B with some Série C clubs, and the Green and White Modules from Série C clubs, the former from the North, Northeast and Central-West regions of Brazil and the latter from South and Southeast of Brazil. Although equivalents to different tiers, the best placed teams from the modules could qualify for the play-offs.[38] Another controversy was the choice of clubs for the Blue Module: Fluminense, which had played in 1999 Campeonato Brasileiro Série C and obtained promotion to Série B, was included in the Blue Module of the new competition, where the elite of Brazilian football was, without having to go through the second division. Similarly, Bahia, playing at the 1999 Campeonato Brasileiro Série B failed to promote back to the top division, was included in the Blue Module.[38]
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