CBF — Confederação Brasileira de Futebol

What is the CBF?

The Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (CBF) is the national association for football in Brazil and the country’s member of FIFA and of CONMEBOL. FIFA’s member-association directory lists the Brazilian association in the CONMEBOL zone, with its website at cbf.com.br.^[3] CONMEBOL’s own profile, written in Spanish, names it the “Confederación Brasileña de Fútbol” and gives its seat in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro.^[1] CONMEBOL’s statutes list it among the confederation’s ten member associations.^[2]

In Brazilian law, sports bodies of this kind are private entities. Article 33 of the Lei Geral do Esporte (Lei 14.597 of 14 June 2023) provides that “as organizações esportivas constituir-se-ão como pessoas jurídicas de direito privado” (sports organisations are constituted as legal persons of private law), and Article 27 makes them autonomous “qualquer que seja sua natureza jurídica ou forma de estruturação” (whatever their legal nature or form of organisation).^[4] The association covers association football, including futsal, for which FIFA’s directory lists a CBF coordinator.^[3] The Laws of the Game it applies are written by IFAB.

What does the CBF govern or do?

The CBF sets the national calendar of Brazil’s club competitions. Reporting on the 2026 season, Metrópoles wrote that “por conta da Copa do Mundo, a CBF alterou o calendário das competições nacionais” (because of the World Cup, the CBF changed the calendar of the national competitions), and that the 2026 Série A would start on Wednesday 28 January.^[5] The national championship — the Brasileirão and its lower divisions, Séries B, C and D — is the competition structure that calendar governs; the same report gives 20 clubs each in Séries A, B and C and 96 in Série D for 2026, and states that Série D would have 96 clubs “pela primeira vez” (for the first time).^[5]

As a CONMEBOL member, the CBF is bound by the confederation’s statutes, whose Article 64 provides that CONMEBOL’s Council “reglamentará un sistema de Licencia de Clubes” with sporting, infrastructure, administrative, legal and financial criteria.^[2] Refereeing is run within the CBF: FIFA’s directory lists a chair of its referees’ committee, a head of its referees’ department and a referee coordinator, alongside a technical director and the coaches of the men’s and women’s national teams.^[3]

When was the CBF founded and where is it based?

CONMEBOL’s profile of the association states that it was “fundada el 8 de junio de 1914”.^[1] CONMEBOL itself was founded two years later, on 9 July 1916, according to Article 1 of its statutes, and the Brazilian association has been a member “desde 1916”.^[2]

CONMEBOL gives the seat as “Avenida Luis Carlos Prestes Nº130 – Barra da Tijuca – Rio de Janeiro”, postcode 22.775-055.^[1] FIFA’s directory gives the same address, “Av. Luis Carlos Prestes, 130, 22775-055 RIO DE JANEIRO - RJ”, and cbf.com.br as the website.^[3]

Samir Xaud is listed by FIFA and CONMEBOL as president (October 2026).^[1][3] Agência Brasil, the public news agency, reported that he was elected on Sunday 25 May 2025 as the only candidate, for a term running to 2029.^[6] FIFA described him in June 2025 as the “recently-elected President of the Brazilian Football Association”.^[7]

How is the CBF recognised?

FIFA. FIFA’s member-association directory lists the Brazilian association as a FIFA member in the CONMEBOL zone, with Samir Xaud as president and Alcino Reis Rocha as general secretary.^[3]

CONMEBOL. CONMEBOL’s statutes, approved by its Extraordinary Congress of 4 June 2019 in Paris, list the “Confederación Brasileña de Fútbol desde 1916” among the ten member associations in Article 5; Article 1 records CONMEBOL’s own founding on 9 July 1916.^[2] CONMEBOL’s profile likewise gives 1916 for its entry into the confederation.^[1]

Brazilian law. Under the Lei Geral do Esporte, sports organisations are private-law legal persons (Article 33) and autonomous (Article 27). Article 29-A, added in 2024 by Lei 15.041, provides that the Comitê Olímpico do Brasil, the Brazilian Paralympic Committee and the two national club committees “constituem subsistemas esportivos próprios” (constitute sports subsystems of their own) within the national sport system.^[4]

What does the CBF organise?

The CBF fields Brazil’s national football teams, which play in CONMEBOL competitions such as the Copa América and in the FIFA World Cup; FIFA’s directory lists the coaches of the men’s and women’s teams.^[1][3] The 2026 World Cup, played from 11 June to 19 July 2026, is past; the CBF changed the 2026 national calendar around it.^[5] Brazil is to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027, which FIFA describes as “the first to be held in South America”.^[7]

Domestically, the CBF’s calendar covers the national championship in four divisions. For 2026 Metrópoles reported 20 clubs in each of Séries A, B and C and 96 in Série D, with Série A opening on 28 January 2026.^[5] The 2026 Série A season is in progress on 4 October 2026.

Who are its members?

The CBF’s president is chosen by an electoral college of state federations and clubs. For the election of 25 May 2025, Agência Brasil reported that the college comprised the 27 state federations, each with a weight of three, and the 40 clubs of Séries A and B, with a weight of two for each Série A club and one for each Série B club — 141 points in all.^[6]

The clubs that play in its national competitions are counted in Metrópoles’s 2026 report as 20 in Série A, 20 in Série B, 20 in Série C and 96 in Série D.^[5] Those are clubs taking part in competitions, not a membership roll. At the continental level the CBF is itself the member: CONMEBOL’s statutes count the national associations, not clubs, as members, and list the Brazilian confederation among the ten.^[2] Under Brazilian law it sets its own internal rules (Article 27), and Article 36 of the Lei Geral do Esporte sets as a governance condition a presidential “mandato de até 4 (quatro) anos, permitida uma única recondução consecutiva” (a term of up to four years, with a single consecutive renewal).^[4]