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Brazilian Football Clubs

National Team

Unofficial Flag

image by Jorge Candeias

In an attempt to raise the theme amongst us, I'm posting today a (not so good) Brazilian fan flag, from a photograph I found somewhere. The flag is horizontally divided green-yellow-blue-yellow-green in proportions 1:1:2:1:1, all in dark shades, with the blue stripe charged with a horizontal line of three white stars at the hoist and the word "BRASIL" in big letters in the fly. What would the stars mean? Three World Cups. (Are there now four?)
Jorge Candeias, 27 April 1998

The national team doesn't have a specific flag and there are no official team supporter flags.
Lucosta, 12 January 1999

Brazilian Football Confederation

Confederação Brasileira de Futebol

image by Jose Alegria Diaz
Source: http://www.geocities.com/vexilologia/futbolbr.htm

I am not 100% sure about the number of stars. Some colleagues, like Jose Luis Brugues, believe there should be 27 stars, representing the 26 states, plus the federal district. I find that impossible, as the stars are nor distributed on three equal lines (9+9+9). The lines are distributed as in the USA canton, and, therefore, I find it more likely to make 26 stars (9+8+9). Also note that CBD is now CBF.

Index of Brazilian Football Clubs

Football Club Flags Generally

It seems like some of these are inspired by Brazilian state flags [e.g., Corínthians and Bahia]. When it comes to sport clubs, I think there is a general tendency that there is a wide range of more or less official supporter flags. Supporter clubs might have their own set flags, e.g.
Elias Granqvist, 13 March 2002

I've noticed that many Brazilian clubs [e.g., Atlético Mineiro, Flamengo, and Naútico] like the horizontal-stripes-and-canton-with-badge design. There is also a real fondness for about two or three color combinations that show up over and over: black and white, green and white, and red and black. In addition, I think I've found four categories of Brazilian club flags that I can identify:

torcidas

Flamengo

Joseph McMillan, 13 March 2002

A sports shop had on sale [at the time of the World Cup] Brazilian flags with 18 green stars in a circle inside the yellow lozenge, going around the outside of the blue sphere.
Ron Peters, 26 May 2006

It's very likely that this is a football fan flag, made to be flown during the world championship. Many countries have "football" variations of their national flags, and green stars on yellow are a common symbol in Brazilian national football, derived, I believe, from the symbol of the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol - see http://cbfnews.uol.com.br
Jorge Candeias, 2 June 2006

This is Brazil's 18th appearance in the World Cup.
Ned Smith, 2 June 2006

Pre-Game Pennant Exchanges

As a diehard football (soccer) fan, I remember a Brazilian custom of teams' exchanging small flags before matches. It used to be done by the teams' skippers in the center of the pitch just before the coin toss and kick off. They would hold the small flag with the left hand, shake hands with the right hand and then take the small flag from the opposing skipper. It was then given to someone to be taken away. I remember this was done for local derbys and interstate and international matches. In Portuguese these pennants are known as flâmulas. I think they had something related to the match written on them along with the team's logo or symbol.
Fernando, 7 August 2002

Flâmula is the Brazilian word. In Portugal these banners are called galhardetes, and the action Fernando describes is so noticeable and usual that it got into the everyday speech as an idiomatic sentence. We use the term troca de galhardetes (literally, "pennant exchange") as a way to describe a somewhat tense exchange of (sometimes double-edged) compliments between rivals.
Jorge Candeias, 8 August 2002

A note on names

Many Brazilian football clubs are named some variant of clube de regatas, or regatta club. This is because the clubs began as rowing clubs and only later took up football. That is also why the flags of Flamengo and Corinthians, among others, have crossed oars or anchors as part of their badges.