On June 15, 2023, the General Sports Law (Law 14,597/2023) was sanctioned and published in the Official Gazette. The objective of the Law is to foster incentives for sport, to regulate the practice of sports in the country, in order to unify, in a single instrument, other important laws of the sector, such as the Pelé Law, the Sports Incentive Law, and the Fan Statute.

Among its main predictions is the creation of the National Sports System (Sinesp in Portuguese), which includes among its missions promoting the integration of federative entities and organizations that work in the sports business, adopting measures to combat discriminatory conduct, stimulating the development of sports practices, etc.

The Law provides, as previously foreseen in the Pelé Law, that the right of exploitation and commercialization of the dissemination of images and sounds (also known as arena right) belongs to sports organizations that are home teams. Thus, clubs will have the “private prerogative to negotiate, authorize or prohibit the capture, fixation, emission, transmission, retransmission, and reproduction of images, by any means or process, of a sporting event in which they participate.”

One of the devices subject to a presidential veto was the controversial point of the flexibilization of the compensatory clause of athletes in employment contracts. This point belonged to the Pelé Law and indicated that the compensatory clause would be an amount owed by the club to the athletes, in the event of termination of contract or dismissal without cause. This amount could be agreed upon between the parties, provided that the maximum limit of 400 times the monthly salary or the minimum limit equivalent to the total monthly salaries that the athlete would receive until the end of his contract if it was respected.

In the text previously approved by the parliamentarians, this clause was flexible if the athlete obtained a new employment contract. In this context, the club should pay only the difference in value of the new salary of the athlete, if it was lower than that agreed in the previous contract.

Finally, the text will continue with the original wording of the Pelé Law.

Now this and the other vetoes have gone to the National Congress’ analysis, which may or may not maintain them.