What is the Comitê Olímpico do Brasil?
The Comitê Olímpico do Brasil (COB) is Brazil's National Olympic Committee. Brazilian federal law describes it as a private-law entity and gives it the task of representing the country at Olympic, Pan American and comparable events and within the Olympic movement.[5] [4]
It is the largest of the South American NOCs by the number of confederations it funds, and it is unusual in the region for the size of the statutory money that passes through it: a fixed percentage of federal lottery and betting revenue is paid to the committee and redistributed to the Olympic confederations. That makes the COB less a selection office than a funding institution with a selection function attached.[6] [1]
Its athlete-facing identity is Time Brasil, the programme name under which the committee organises the national Olympic team, its training centre and its athlete support.[1] A Brazilian athlete entered at the Olympic Games or the Pan American Games is entered by the COB through an affiliated confederation.[5]
What does it do?
Article 30 of the Lei Geral do Esporte (Lei 14.597/2023) provides that "Ao COB, entidade jurídica de direito privado, compete representar o País nos eventos olímpicos, pan-americanos e outros de igual natureza". Article 31 reserves to the COB and the Brazilian Paralympic Committee the use of the Olympic and Paralympic flags, mottoes, anthems and symbols and of the terms "jogos olímpicos" and "olimpíadas" — the same reservation the earlier Lei Pelé had made in its article 15.[5] [4]
Article 29-A constitutes the COB as a subsystem of its own within the national sport system, and article 38 requires it to agree pacts for the Olympic and Paralympic cycles with the sport ministry as the condition of its resource allocation. That pact is the formal hinge between the private committee and the Ministério do Esporte.[5]
Downstream, the committee distributes money to the confederations, runs Time Brasil and the training centre in Rio de Janeiro, and administers Olympic Solidarity programmes.[8] [1]
When was it founded and when was it recognised by the IOC?
The sources conflict and this page leaves the conflict standing. The committee's own account dates its origin to 8 June 1914, when sports leaders met in Rio de Janeiro at the headquarters of the Brazilian rowing federation and formed a Comitê Olímpico Nacional, and traces IOC contact back to 1913, when Paranhos do Rio Branco was invited to act as the IOC's delegate in Brazil.[1]
Olympedia gives a different reading: that the Confederação Brasileira de Desportos, founded 8 June 1914, was the first Brazilian sporting body affiliated to the Olympic movement, and that the National Olympic Committee itself was formed in 1935 and recognised by the IOC on 20 May 1935.[2] On that account 1914 is the founding of a sports confederation and 1935 the founding and recognition of the NOC. This page could not retrieve an IOC document settling the point.
The rename is the one clean date of the three. On 4 August 2014 the committee announced that Comitê Olímpico Brasileiro would become Comitê Olímpico do Brasil, with the statutes to be updated across the cycle to the 2016 Games.[3]
How is it funded and governed?
The committee's principal income is statutory. The channel began with the Lei Agnelo/Piva, signed on 16 July 2001, which directed 2% of the gross take of the federal lotteries to the Olympic and Paralympic committees, split 85% to the COB and 15% to the CPB; this page carries the split on secondary sourcing.[9] The committee's own current statement of the channel is that Lei 13.756/2018 gives it about 1.7% of the amounts wagered in the Caixa lotteries, and that Lei 14.790/2023 adds, on the committee's own account, about 2.2% of the sport-earmarked share of fixed-odds betting revenue from 2025.[1] [8]
The scale is visible in the redistribution. On 16 October 2024 the committee proposed R$265 million for the Olympic confederations in the first year of the new cycle, a rise of 17.8% on 2024 and the largest since the lottery channel was created in 2001, with 37 confederations in the distribution table.[8] IOC transfers and sponsorship make up the remainder.[1]
Governance is by an elective assembly. On 3 October 2024 that assembly — 55 members: 34 presidents of summer and winter Olympic confederations, two Brazilian IOC members and 19 athletes' commission representatives — elected Marco La Porta and Yane Marques by 30 votes to 25 for the 2025-2028 term.[7]
Which Games does it enter, and what does it organise?
The COB enters Brazil at the Olympic Games, the Winter Olympic Games and the Youth Olympic Games, and across the Americas at the Pan American Games and Junior Pan American Games owned by Panam Sports and the South American Games owned by ODESUR. Its entry right at those events is the one article 30 of the Lei Geral do Esporte states in terms.[5]
What it organises domestically is a programme rather than a Games: Time Brasil, together with the Olympic training centre in Barra da Tijuca and the school and university games run under the committee's banner, which is why the committee's addresses include both an administrative office and a training centre.[1] University-level competition abroad runs through FISU and the World University Games rather than through the COB.
This page could not retrieve the committee's audited annual report, and gives no total revenue figure; the figures above are the redistribution proposal and the statutory percentages the committee itself publishes.[8]
Which confederations are its members?
The COB's members are national confederations, one per sport, not clubs or athletes. The clearest published count comes from the electoral assembly of 3 October 2024, in which 34 presidents of summer and winter Olympic confederations voted; the distribution table published a fortnight later listed 37 Olympic sport confederations receiving money.[7] [8] The two numbers count slightly different populations and this page does not reconcile them into a single membership figure.
Members whose pages this site already carries include the aquatics confederation CBDA, the athletics confederation CBAt, the boxing confederation CBBoxe, the gymnastics confederation CBG, the judo confederation CBJ, the tennis confederation CBT, the triathlon confederation CBTri and the volleyball confederation CBV.[8]
Because the cycle pacts under article 38 of the Lei Geral do Esporte run through the committee to these confederations, membership carries a funding consequence as well as an entry one: a confederation outside the committee is outside both the entry route to the Games and the statutory money that follows it. The published distribution table is the clearest single record of who the members are in any given year.[5] [8]
References
- Comitê Olímpico do Brasil — Sobre o COB (history, addresses, funding channels, Time Brasil). Accessed September 2026.
- Olympedia — Brazil (BRA), NOC formation and IOC recognition 20 May 1935. Accessed September 2026.
- Agência Brasil — COB muda de nome e agora é Comitê Olímpico do Brasil, August 2014. Accessed September 2026.
- Lei 9.615/1998 (Lei Pelé), art. 15 — Câmara dos Deputados consolidated text. Accessed September 2026.
- Lei 14.597/2023 (Lei Geral do Esporte), arts. 29-A, 30, 31, 38 — Planalto. Accessed September 2026.
- Comitê Olímpico do Brasil — lottery and fixed-odds betting allocations under Lei 13.756/2018 and Lei 14.790/2023. Accessed September 2026.
- Comitê Olímpico do Brasil — Marco La Porta é eleito Presidente do COB, 3 October 2024. Accessed September 2026.
- Comitê Olímpico do Brasil — COB sugere distribuição recorde de R$ 265 milhões para as Confederações, 16 October 2024. Accessed September 2026.
- Lei Agnelo/Piva — signed 16 July 2001, 2% of federal lottery take split 85/15 between COB and CPB (secondary source). Accessed September 2026.