Rio giant CR Flamengo has won a decisive courtroom victory against the breach of its IP by an unlicensed online gambling brand. Ana Maria Menezes reports that while Flamengo may have defended its colours, Brazil’s state courts still lack oversight on how to judge disputes relating to advertising, sponsorship, and intellectual property

In Rio de Janeiro, few things are more sacred than the red and black of CR Flamengo.

So when an obscure betting brand calling itself ‘BetFla’ started branding itself as “the betting house of the red-and-black fans,” the club’s lawyers saw red. 

In late October, the 6th Business Court of Rio de Janeiro issued a judgment that may yet become a milestone in Brazil’s new Bets regulatory framework, the legislative regime regulating online gambling. 

The court found BetFla guilty of “parasitic exploitation” profiting from the Flamengo name and iconography without permission and ordered the company to stop using the club’s identity, freeze its domains and pay a R$50,000 (€81,375) price tag and new compensation to be determined at a later date. 

Another R$50,000 will be paid by the operator per day of defiance, as Rio courts enforce one of the biggest IPs in Brazil’s legal history. 

The judge’s rationale was clear cut. “It is neither legal nor ethical for a defendant to profit from engaging in the act of exploiting a business entity, whilst also bringing reputation harm onto another’s brand,” he wrote. 

“The mimicry of distinctive signs and colours was not accidental but deliberate, and was meant to induce in consumers a false impression of official partnership.” 

As reported by SBC Notícias Brasil,  the Brazilian football brand also said the decision “reiterates that our symbols are not public property and our legacy cannot be commercialised by opportunists who see football as a free-for-all.” 

“The club will always strive to preserve the pride and the purity of the red-and-black image – not for profit as just one of those trading items, but as an important part of Brazil’s culture and tradition.”

Executives at Flamengo welcomed the victory as an earthquake, a significant and potentially historic moment in how corporate intellectual property will be upheld in the Bets era.

“This isn’t just any one site,” Flamengo officials stated to court judges: “It’s just also about the line between real sponsorship and digital piracy. Football teams, players and fans are entitled to clarity in a market just beginning to get regulated.”

Flamengo no issue with Gambling 

Flamengo’s status imbues the decision with heft. Established in 1895, the club is Brazil’s best-supported team and currently is in second place in the Série A, after Palmeiras. 

It is one of the nation’s Big Four with a symbol of both sporting power and commercial charm, alongside Fluminense, Botafogo and Vasco da Gama. 

As Brazil’s gambling market embarked on its first regulatory steps, the delineations between brand, sponsorship and licence remain dangerously blurry in the context of regulatory risks.

Flamengo is no stranger to gambling affairs, and was one of the first Serie A clubs to publicly support the launch of a federal online gambling regime. 

The club previously collaborated with PixBet as main sponsor and technology partner in 2022. However the relationship courted controversy from its announcement as Flamengo launched the PixBet-managed and co-branded platform of FlaBet. 

The partnership was lambasted as opportunist by political leaders and Serie A clubs, and was quietly disbanded in August.

State Courts need urgent determinations 

Brought to life in January, the Bets regime did not include much that defined the advertising code, which left regulators to clear up crucial provisions regarding the ways of marketing and the use of club imagery and sponsorship visibility. 

Without urgent clarification, lawyers have warned, the next wave of disputes could see clubs, agencies and operators put on each other in a legal quagmire of mutual aid in a legal vacuum. 

The political backdrop is equally blurred as the Senate is currently reviewing two separate bills on gambling advertising: one advocating for tighter self-regulation, the other proposing a near-total blackout ban on gambling promotion across broadcast, digital and sports sponsorship channels. 

As it stands, the Chambers and the Senate have reached no consensus on which direction the Bets regime should take regarding advertising, sponsorship and intellectual-property protections.

As one legal source told SBC Notícias Brasil, “advertising and sponsorship should not clog the state courts; they need a unified national framework before the market collapses under its own contradictions.”

Until the two chambers reconcile drafts, the Bets regime will remain a half-built house: a law that legalises gambling but leaves the question as to who may advertise it, how and on whose shirt, unanswered.

Flamengo’s win, then, is more than a mere symbolic declaration of heritage, it’s a warning. In the end, unless IP and sponsorship protections are legally guaranteed, Brazil’s new betting market is doomed to build on shaky ground, where imitation takes priority over regulation and passion turns into a branded mark to be fought over on the streets.