STF denies Flamengo’s appeal and maintains Sport as Brazilian champion of 87

Polka Dots Cup

The decision validated the victory of the Pernambuco team and did not grant the Taça das Polinhas to the Rio club.

Minister Dias Toffoli, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), decided to maintain court decisions that recognized Sport Clube Recife as champion of the 1987 Brazilian Championship.

In the measure, signed on Tuesday (5), the minister denied Flamengo’s appeal against the decision of the Justice of Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco that validated the victory of the Pernambuco team and did not grant the Taça das Bolinhas to the Rio club.

The Polka Dots Cup would be awarded to the team that first won the championship three times in a row or five times alternately. The trophy was awarded to São Paulo, considered the first five-time Brazilian champion club, a position achieved in 2007.

According to Flamengo’s arguments, the 1987 Brazilian Championship title cannot be confused with the João Havelange Trophy, won in the same year by the club and which was counted towards the Bolinhas Cup.

According to lawyers, the 1987 Brazilian Championship regulations provided that the champions of the green module (TRofeu João Havelange), formed by teams from the previous year’s first division, would play against the winners of the yellow module and define who would be that year’s champion.

For having won the green module, Flamengo claims that it should be declared champion and keep the Taça das Polinhas.

Only in 2011, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) declared Flamengo also champion of 87, but the decision was overturned by the courts.

When analyzing the issue, Minister Dias Toffoli understood that the decision of the First Panel of the Court, which, in 2018, maintained Sport as the only champion and annulled the CBF resolution was valid.

“The conclusion reached by the Court of Justice of the state of Rio de Janeiro that the STF recognized, definitively and by final and unappealable decision on 3/16/2018, that the sentence handed down by the Federal Court of Pernambuco in the action declaratory and obligation to make a proposal for Sport Clube Recife declared, in an undisputed manner, Sport Clube Recife as the only and legitimate champion of the 1987 Brazilian football tournament”, wrote Toffoli.

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