UOL journalist Rodrigo Mattos today brings a piece explaining how Brazilian side América-MG waited two years befpre receiving the money for the transfer of Richarlison.
The story you’re about to read will sound quite confusing, and that only shows how football transfers in Brazil work sometimes.
Before we start, we better recap. The striker started his professional career at América-MG. In 2016, he was sold to Fluminense, with his former club keeping 20% of a future sale. Then Watford signed him in 2017 in a £11.16m deal.
UOL says the Premier League side paid Fluminense in two instalments, one in 2017 and another in 2018. The Rio de Janeiro club was supposed to send 20% of it, which was R$7.5m (£1.09m), to América-MG, and didn’t do so.
In December 2018, América-MG took legal action, and Fluminense ended up agreeing to pay it in several instalments. However, they only made the first payment, of R$1m (£140k), and passed the rest of the debt to Corinthians, who owed them a similar amount at that time.
So Corinthians, who never owned Richarlison, now had the responsibility of paying América-MG, which is the smallest and poorest club of all those named in the story.
The debt was now of R$6.5m (£940k), and América-MG owed Corinthians R$750k (£108k) from past debts. That amount would be amortised, leaving the total payment for Richarlison to R$5.75m (£830k). All to be paid in three instalments.
According to UOL, Corinthians didn’t pay the last instalment, of R$2.9m (£420k). So in February 2020, América-MG went legal again. In June, the court decided to block Corinthians’ bank accounts, and found out they only had R$428k(£62k).
The case came to an end in August 2020, when the debt was completely settled. América-MG took two years to get the 20% they had on Richarlison, and even though that money was coming from the Watford move, he’d already been playing for Everton for two seasons when the debt was settled.
The moral of the story? Be careful when dealing with Brazilian transfers.
