By IANS/EFE,
Rio de Janeiro : Brazil’s professional soccer teams owe a combined $1.3 billion, with more than half of this to the government, a media report said.
The government is owed 57 percent of the money due to unpaid back taxes, past-due social security contributions and fines for late payments, the official Agencia Brasil reported, citing a new study.
The study was prepared by Casual Auditores, an auditing firm that specialises in serving soccer teams, and consulting company Parker Randall.
The teams’ debts totalled $702.7 million in 2006, nearly doubling in less than five years.
“The increase in the debt is due to the fact that the clubs’ main obligations are fiscal, that is, past-due taxes,” economist Carlos Aragaki, who helped prepare the report, told Agencia Brasil.
Brazil’s most indebted soccer teams are Fluminense, which owes a total of $172.8 million, and Botafogo, whose obligations total $162.7 million.
“The government even created a sports lottery to help the clubs reduce their debts, but the revenues from the lottery are not big,” Aragaki said.