Flamengo has formally taken possession of the land on which it will seek to build a new stadium, with the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A football club stating it plans to launch a virtual brick venture enabling fans to contribute to the project.
The land handover was conducted yesterday (Thursday) as a meeting was held to formally conclude the agreement. The meeting featured the likes of Flamengo president Rodolfo Landim, along with Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes.
The process to secure the land has been a long and complicated one. A breakthrough appeared to have been made in August after state-owned financial services group, Caixa Econômica Federal, agreed to drop its legal action over the sale of the site it owned.
Flamengo in July took a major step towards building a new stadium after purchasing the package of land in Rio de Janeiro. The site formerly housed the São Cristóvão Gasômetro and has been managed by Caixa since 2009. Flamengo first expressed an interest in taking over the 86,000-square-metre site back in 2022.
Earlier, the club’s Deliberative Council approved its proposal to take part in an auction held on July 31. The 7th Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro later suspended the auction before allowing it to take place.
Flamengo was the only party to submit an offer and agreed to acquire the land for a fee of R$138.195m (£19.16m/€22.88m/$25.23m). Paes approved Flamengo’s bid but Caixa subsequently filed a legal claim in Federal Court questioning the fee agreed for the sale of the land, which was expropriated by the City of Rio de Janeiro in June.
This required state intervention to broker an agreement between the warring parties, with the path to yesterday’s final deal being smoothed through mediation via the Federal Administration Conciliation and Arbitration Chamber (CCAF). The disputes regarding the land sale will now see Flamengo effectively pay R$170m for the site.
Landim said yesterday: “It is difficult to say whether it is the greatest legacy of my administration, but I am very happy to deliver this. The next step is to survey the land, put together the basic project, and apply for all the necessary permits. This phase should last up to two years, hopefully less, and then the construction period will begin.
“Our idea is, like what we have at the CT (training ground), to put a 50-metre-high flagpole with a large flag in the middle of the land, so that everyone who passes by can see that this is our land. I am sure that our fans are very happy to have this dream of our stadium come true.
“We will soon launch the virtual brick project for anyone who wants to contribute to the construction of the stadium. We will have scoreboards and panels showing the names of those who contribute during the construction period, and later inside the stadium. The names of those who contribute will be forever registered at Flamengo’s stadium.”
Paes added: “Flamengo is a Rio de Janeiro and Brazilian institution that represents a quarter of the country’s population. This project meets a need in the city, to recover a region that has been degraded for so long.
“I am immensely grateful to President Lula, this partnership is very important, decisive, and the result of much negotiation. The city will benefit greatly from this. Now that Flamengo has possession of the land, we have some legal measures ahead of us… but from today onwards, the Gasômetro land belongs to the Red-Black Nation.”
The club is now set to open a competition to develop designs for what is intended to be a 70,000 to 80,000-seat stadium. The reported budget is R$1.7bn, with the new facility earmarked to be ready for November 15, 2029, when the club will mark its 134th birthday.
A new stadium would mean that Flamengo would ultimately move out of the Estadio de Maracanã which has been its home since its construction in 1950.
Flamengo, Fluminense and the Rio de Janeiro State Government last month officially signed a contract that will see the two clubs manage the Maracanã for the next 20 years. The state government confirmed back in June that the Fla/Flu Consortium had been awarded the contract after submitting a higher bid than a proposal put forward by Vasco da Gama and the WTorre conglomerate.
