Practice of corporate governance in football clubs

The objective of this article was to measure the level of adherence of the practices of corporate governance in Brazilian football clubs. The adoption of good practices of corporate governance has its purpose to guide the model of management of clubs and to increase the capacity of aggregation of value to football business, decreasing the expropriation of wealth of its shareholders and guaranteeing the professionalisation of the club's management. The model of corporate governance is based on the agency theory (contracts theory), which has subsidised the construction of an index (IGCCF) for evaluation of the practices of corporate governance adopted in the Brazilian football clubs. In the analysis, we used statutes, accounting statements and websites. The research comprises a sample of 27 Brazilian clubs that corresponds about 134,200 million of fans. The results confirm the chaotic scene of the management model adopted by Brazilian clubs. The biggest governance index did not exceed 49.1% of the total score. The national average is 28% of the total score and the worst was of 13%. To evaluate the conceptual adherence of the corporate governance index of the football clubs (IGCCF), we applied the model in a European club. The result was 60% of the total score.corporate governance; accounting; disclosure; football clubs; soccer clubs; Brazil; agency theory; contracts theory; modelling; club management.