With the end of the state tournaments and three months until the World Cup, much of the attention of the country's fans is now focused on the Brazilian Championship, the main attraction on the calendar for the top Brazilian football teams.
As part of this select club, Grêmio faces a tough decision. However, this decision isn't on the field. It's within the dispute between the Brazilian Football League ( Libra ) and Futebol Forte União (FFU), the two clubs that have been battling since 2023 to determine the winner in another competition: the creation of a football league in the country.
In what should be the next confrontation in this arena – the date of the match has already been postponed twice – those who will take the field will be the members of Grêmio's Deliberative Council. And what will be at stake is precisely the departure of the Rio Grande do Sul club from Libra, which would strengthen the FFU team.
“We already have the framework for what would be the formation of a single league,” Gabriel Lima, CEO of FFU, tells NeoFeed . “And now, we want to attract the 40 clubs from the A and B series and all those from the C series who want to come to our side.”
In this format, with 35 clubs – when it was created, there were 23 – FFU has been handing Libra, which has 15, a heavy defeat. But, considering only Série A, there is a tie, with ten teams fielded on each side. Besides the possibility of Grêmio, however, the Libra squad already anticipates two absences.
In September 2025, Vitória announced that it was leaving Libra and joining the rival group. A month later, Atlético-MG returned to FFU, a group it helped found and which it had left in June 2023 - at the time, FFU was still called Liga Forte Futebol (LFF).
Other clubs had already changed their sponsors. These were the cases of Cruzeiro, Botafogo, and Vasco, who left Libra in 2023, and Corinthians in 2024. However, these moves occurred before both groups finalized the sale of broadcasting rights for the 2025-2029 cycle.
In the case of FFU, which negotiated agreements with Grupo Globo, Record, CazéTV/YouTube, and Amazon, worth R$ 1.7 billion per season. And, in the case of Libra, which closed an exclusivity contract with the channels and media of the Marinho family, worth R$ 1.3 billion.
In this context, the agreements signed by Atlético-MG and Vitória remain valid until 2029. This rule will also apply to Grêmio, should its board members decide that FFU will be the new home of the Rio Grande do Sul club. As far as FFU is concerned, other teams will choose the same destination.
“We are in talks with five of the other seven Serie A clubs in the Libra network,” says Bruno Pimenta, CEO of Sports Media, a vehicle created and controlled by Life Capital Partners to be the fund behind FFU. The operation also includes Livemode, in addition to General Atlantic and XP , its investors.
“There was a lot of doubt about what this world of negotiation would be like beyond Globo. That has been answered. We brought more money to the clubs and a lot of predictability,” says Pimenta. “This is making the clubs that are outside want to enter. And, for those that haven't yet come, it's only a matter of time.”
According to Pimenta, the FFU management, represented by Gabriel Lima, has no involvement in these negotiations. Conversations with other clubs – currently, the top tier of the Libra program includes names like Flamengo, Palmeiras, Santos, São Paulo, and Bahia – are conducted by Sports Media.
Heavy artillery
To engage directly with rival clubs, Sports Media strengthened its arsenal by hiring BTG Pactual as an M&A advisor. Interestingly, André Esteves' bank was one of the names involved in structuring Libra three years ago.
In ongoing negotiations with Grêmio, the proposal involves the purchase of 10% of the club's broadcasting rights for 50 years, for an undisclosed amount.
On the other hand, when contacted by NeoFeed , Libra said it would not comment. A source close to the group stressed, however, that there have already been direct talks between the two blocs, which included a failed negotiation of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for unification.
“All parties continue to talk. Libra has always been open to this dialogue and to seeking an understanding,” says this source. “What is striking, and this is relevant to FFU investors, is that they continue with this practice of harassing Libra clubs, promising immediate benefits.”
On the other hand, Sports Media has presented other figures in an attempt to "buy the rights" of the Libra clubs. One of them is the value of R$ 1.7 billion per season in the sale of broadcasting rights for FFU clubs from 2025 to 2029, which represents a 110% increase over the previous cycle.
In another statistic, in 2025, the first year of FFU's operation, the difference between Corinthians, the club that earned the most from this pie, and Sport, at the other end, was 1.97 times, compared to 6.25 times in 2024. This same index in the Spanish LaLiga was 3.5 times. And in the English Premier League, it was 1.7 times.
“Back then, there was a lot of noise about how much each group could deliver,” says Lima, the CEO of FFU. “Now, we have numbers and facts. And we can demonstrate very clearly what we did for Vitória, Atlético-MG, and Grêmio. We are delivering more value to our clubs.”
This doesn't mean that the FFU squad is fully integrated. At the end of February, for example, Goiás sent an extrajudicial notification to the group citing concerns – which would be shared by other teams in the bloc – about a possible dilution of revenues with the eventual arrival of Grêmio.
“There is no revenue dilution,” says Lima. “Grêmio, like Atlético-MG and Vitória, does not participate in the current contracts, which remain as they are, but rather in future collective negotiations. And the more clubs we have, the greater the revenue will certainly be.”
Pimenta, in turn, points out that the process involving Grêmio became public before FFU had time to explain the details of the negotiation to its members. This, in his view, also contributed to fueling these questions.
“Grêmio’s process will be identical to all the others,” says Pimenta. “We have a procedure here, and the final decision, if the club manages to get approval from its board, will be made by all FFU members via assembly. This is already stipulated in the bloc’s governance.”
Grêmio's intention to leave Libra also stems from noise and disagreements within the group. This also helps explain the departures of Atlético-MG and Vitória, in a plot where Flamengo is the antagonist.
In September 2025, the Rio de Janeiro club disagreed with the revenue distribution criteria agreed upon by Libra with Grupo Globo. Subsequently, it obtained an injunction in the Rio de Janeiro courts blocking the transfer of the installment paid by the broadcaster that month, amounting to R$ 77 million.
The move impacted a large portion of the clubs in the bloc, which were already facing an unfavorable financial situation. In this context, Libra, which doesn't have an investor backing its operations, began seeking resources in the market through its commercial division.
Since November, the group had been negotiating the sale of 5% of each club's broadcasting rights for 15 years with Daycoval . In February, however, the bank ended the talks, which fueled Grêmio's intention to leave the bloc.
Amid these disputes and advances in the opposing camp, Lima understands that the moment is increasingly opportune for the debate about a single league, spearheaded by the FFU, to finally gain momentum. However, there is an essential actor to be included in this conversation: the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF).
“Currently, this dialogue is taking place among the clubs. We don’t have direct communication with the CBF at this moment. This administration has only been there for a short time and has other priorities,” says the CEO. “We need to strengthen our own alliances before having a concrete discussion about the role of each party in this situation.”
New moves
Meanwhile, still operating as a commercial bloc, the FFU has been evaluating how to generate new revenue streams for its clubs. And, with its increasingly robust roster, the negotiation of collective ownership rights is one of the alternatives under development. One example is the Série B, where it has 18 of the 20 teams.
“When you have a group like this, the bargaining power is much greater, and you can try to negotiate a one-time sponsorship deal for the broadcasts,” says Pimenta. “So, a company can have its brand on all the teams, on the jersey or in another media outlet. It would be in nine out of ten games in each round.”
Other areas that are still relatively unexplored are digital properties and international broadcasting rights. The latter accounts for only 1% of revenue. And the approach has been very similar to the strategy already adopted by peers like LaLiga , before gaining scale abroad.
“Instead of generating money, our initial strategy is to promote and try to be in the biggest media outlets outside of Brazil, so that people see the product,” explains Lima. “It’s still a small volume, precisely because we haven’t been able to develop this product yet. We would need to have a team to do that.”
Interestingly, this was one of the few paths taken with FFU and Libra on the same team. In 2025, the pair closed a three-year joint deal with 1190 Sports for the sale of international broadcasting rights for the A and B series, including 39 teams – with the exception of Flamengo.
“It’s essential to understand that, with or without a league, the benefits already exist. Even when they negotiated separately, both blocs brought increased resources to the clubs,” says Pimenta. “The league is the upside here, to be able to improve the product and unlock new revenue streams.”
Until that happens, he notes that another FFU plan is to create products or alternatives to facilitate access to capital for the clubs. Here, however, he also highlights another advancement by the group.
“Today, FFU clubs are already gaining access to cheaper debt because they can anticipate the revenue from these contracts signed by the bloc,” says Pimenta. “So, at the end of the day, the bank ends up taking on the risk not of the club, but of Amazon, Record, and YouTube.”
