THE DECEIVED INTERMEDIARY
BRENNER SOUZA DA SILVA, currently at F.C. CINCINNATI, was registered by SÃO PAULO FUTEBOL CLUBE at thirteen on April 4, 2013.
In January 2018, TIAGO GUADAGNO GERALDO (intermediary) and the football player mentioned above, BRENNER SOUZA DA SILVA, already over 18 years old, signed a REPRESENTATION AGREEMENT, which was duly registered with the BRAZILIAN FOOTBALL CONFEDERATION (CBF).
which started when the player was around 14 years old.
UNDERSTAND HOW ENTICEMENT OCCURS IN PRACTICE
A FOOTBALL PLAYER, with a contractual relationship with COMPANY A, begins to stand out.
COMPANY B, a competitor of COMPANY A, starts to entice the FOOTBALL PLAYER to break the link with COMPANY A.
The rhetoric of COMPANY B is seductive and often attacks the honor of people linked to COMPANY A, with whom the player maintains a relationship.
In many cases, COMPANY B offers a reward to the player and/or his family and friends to sign the new contract and promises to pay for any outstanding financial issues arising from the breach of contract.
WHAT DOES THE NATIONAL REGULATION ON INTERMEDIARIES OF THE BRAZILIAN FOOTBALL FEDERATION (CBF) SAY?
An intermediary and the same football player can only sign a single representation contract during its term.
The intermediary may not provide an intermediation service or enter into a representation contract with a football player who has an exclusive representation contract, registered at the CBF, with another intermediary.
If he does, this intermediary will be jointly liable for any contractual fines, as well as for any losses and damages that may be determined, provided that the non-fulfilled representation contract is registered with CBF.
Unless proven otherwise, the intermediary providing an intermediary service or entering into a representation contract with a football player who has unilaterally and without just cause terminated an exclusive representation contract with his previous intermediary induced the football player to breach the contract.
ELENKO
ELENKO SPORTS LTD, founded on October 30, 2014, is a company that represents football players and currently has as partners GUILHERME DE MIRANDA GONÇALVES and LUIS FERNANDO MENEZES GARCIA.
By registering at CBF, ELENKO undertook to follow the applicable regulations of CBF, FIFA, and the Brazilian legislation, and, theoretically, it should carry out its work based on the principles of:
• Loyalty,
• Transparency,
• Honesty,
• Probity,
• Good faith,
• Professional diligence.
OFFERING REWARD AND INDUCTION TO BREACH CONTRACT: FROM PRESUMPTION TO EVIDENCE
The intermediary is forbidden to give or offer a reward of any kind to a football player, either directly or indirectly, to use his intermediation service or enter into a representation contract with this intermediary. Football players are also forbidden to accept such offers or receive such rewards (art. 32).
Although aware of the RULES and REGULATIONS of CBF, FIFA, and the BRAZILIAN LEGISLATION, including prohibitions highlighted above, ELENKO and the ATHLETE proceeded recklessly when signing a contract ignoring the previous legal relationship with the intermediary TIAGO GUADAGNO GERALDO.
On November 22, 2018, just 11 months after having signed with the businessman, TIAGO GUADAGNO GERALDO, an exclusive representation contract in force and duly registered at CBF, ELENKO and the football player, BRENNER SOUZA DA SILVA, signed the following:
- PRIVATE INSTRUMENT OF DONATION – Through this document, ELENKO undertakes to donate R$ 600,000.00 (six hundred thousand reais) to the FOOTBALL PLAYER;
- TERM OF COMMITMENT – ELENKO undertakes to keep the FOOTBALL PLAYER exempt from any responsibility and to bear any contractual penalty, moral damage, as well as all expenses fees of attorney that may occur in the event of filling a claim by third parties, based on a representation agreement of professional footballer between the athlete and third parties, immediately before the contract signed with ELENKO;
- REPRESENTATION CONTRACT FOR PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS WITH FUTURE EFFICACY – In the item referring to the contractual term, there is the following wording: “This instrument will be valid for 2 (two) years, starting just after the end or termination of the representation currently registered at CBF…”.
These are some of the details of the company's modus operandi and the stance of the ATHLETE himself that deserves to be highlighted and that promote questions that are always reigning in a system marked by impunity and still destined to privilege fraudsters who consider themselves "smart" in the worst sense of the word. Inquiries such as: a) would ELENKO and BRENNER be seeking to obtain an illicit advantage, to the detriment of others, using fraudulent means, affronting the rules they should respect? b) would ELENKO be using an illegal means to divert the clientele of others for its own and/or others' benefit? c) illegitimate and unlawful acts practiced in unfortunately common situations such as this concern with only the scope of a mere breach of contract or encompass legal and regulatory violations that go far beyond fines and losses and damages in a legal system marked by a crisis of effectiveness, especially regarding the punishment of offenders?
THE REITERATED ILLICIT CONDUCT OF INTERMEDIARIES AND FOOTBALL PLAYERS
Often, illegalities such as those that the narrated facts suggest seem difficult to formally identify and institutionally punished.
Neither the recruited athlete nor the company that recruits him will produce evidence against themselves.
Furthermore, the infringers rely on the performance of lawyers who know how to set the tone of legitimacy to irregular actions and omissions.
The offenders involved in this modus operandi, defrauding the fair expectation of the intermediary in good faith who signed a regular contract with the football player, seem to believe that they will not be contractually penalized nor punished.
Perhaps they assume that the system is not yet adequately prepared to impose the order and the law with swift and effective justice.
The system is still in its infancy, which has to be changed with the honest conduct of serious and correct people who act responsibly towards their peers and respect for the law.
PROPERTY HIDING
In many cases, agents that practice these types of illegalities act strategically to protect their assets, added by illegitimate profits, through formal disguises: they change their corporate structures, implement difficult-to-detect accounting maneuvers, transfer the assets to other companies that will not be subject to accountability, sometimes even using their own mother.
SOME ELENKO CORPORATE STRUCTURES
Currently, ELENKO SPORTS LTD. participates as an open partner in eighteen PARTICIPATION ACCOUNT SOCIETIES, (ELENKO SPORTS PAS LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 2 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 3 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 4 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 5 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 6 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 7 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 8 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 9 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 10 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 11 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 12 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS, PAS ELENKO SPORTS PAS 14 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 16 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 17 LTD., ELENKO SPORTS PAS 18 LTD., and ELENKO SPORTS PAS 19 LTD.).
A PARTICIPATION ACCOUNT SOCIETY is a structure in which two or more people come together for a specific purpose.
In practice, one person (usually the hidden partner or investor-participant) provides resources to another (the ostensible partner) so that the last one can use them in a project or entrepreneurship to obtain results to be shared.
Some prefer to say it is a discreet society because it only exists between the partners, and everything occurs internally.
It sounds strange, in the context, to use a corporate type that could give rise to a lack of transparency, thereby compromising the observance of the other principles that should govern the activities performed by the intermediary.
IMPUNITY AND RECURRENCE
After perpetrating illegalities and not being punished, the athlete continued committing them, as reported by journalist JORGE NICOLA.
According to information gathered by the journalist, the striker changed his agent again.
After being enticed and represented by ELENKO SPORTS GIULIANO BERTOLLUCI’s office now represents the player.
According to Nicola, ELENKO SPORTS understands that it still had a one-year contract with the São Paulo jewel and promises to charge around 4 million euros.
PRESSURE FROM CLUBS OFFICERS
The regulation of intermediaries specifies, in art. number 31, that all parties involved in a negotiation are prohibited from, directly or indirectly, making a transaction conditional on the connection of a football player with a specific intermediary.
However, cases in which officers of some football clubs “induce” the exchange of representatives just before the transference of the footballer are becoming more and more common.
It is a scheme in which the intermediary, who enticed the footballer, in “partnership” with the officer, can carry out the transaction and receive the proceeds from it, later sharing the financial result with the involved parties.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks to citizens who can no longer bear the weight of a criminogenic society and the CLEAN THE GAME anonymous reporting system that protects the identity of informants, we will be able to help build a new story.