Petrobras to sponsor women’s soccer championships in São Paulo

Petrobras and the São Paulo Football Federation (FPF) announced this Thursday (5) an agreement to sponsor women’s championships. The clubs participating in this year’s edition of the Paulistão Feminino will receive a total bonus of R$1 million, which is in addition to the more than R$3 million they will already receive.

The competition began in May and ends at the end of November, with breaks for the Olympics, FIFA dates and the Copa Libertadores da América. Seven of the 22 athletes who competed came from São Paulo clubs. competed in the Games in Paris and returned with silver.

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In a statement, the FPF reported that “the partnership with Petrobras will help promote the entire chain of women’s football, from the grassroots level, through the training and qualification of athletes and professionals, to the main competitions, such as the Paulistão Sicredi Feminino. More than a thousand athletes will be impacted”.

The state-owned company will support all categories of the women’s competition promoted by the entity, which maintains, in addition to the professional category with the state championship, under-20, under-17, under-15 competitions, the Under-14 and Under-12 Festival and the Women’s Cup. In 2015, women’s football only had the São Paulo championship. According to the federation, the number of youth athletes, under 18 years old, jumped from 681 to almost a thousand between 2022 and 2024.

Petrobras has been an important sponsor of sports and culture in the country for two decades, but it has not yet supported the youth categories of women’s soccer. “From 2024 onwards, women’s soccer has been defined as the company’s reference collective sport, with a broad sponsorship strategy. We seek to promote competitions, encourage the training of new athletes and professional and infrastructure development, in addition to carrying out actions to combat prejudice and empower women,” said Petrobras Sponsorship Manager Alessandra Teixeira in a press release.

The company will also support training activities, such as the Women’s Leadership course that the federation promotes in partnership with La Liga, and social and environmental responsibility actions.

The partnership is part of the strategy to strengthen the sport in the country, which will host the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

“We have a World Cup ahead of us. This Olympic runner-up team sent a clear message to women’s football around the world that we will compete on equal terms in competitions. We had girls in this Olympic team who were born from the initiative of the São Paulo Football Federation. We will have girls that we never imagined playing for Brazil in the 2027 World Cup, because women’s football is thriving, what is lacking is opportunity,” said Reinaldo Carneiro Bastos, president of the FPF.

Clubs from São Paulo have dominated the national scene in the sport. Of the 12 Brazilian championships already played, only one was won by a club from outside São Paulo, Flamengo, in 2016. Corinthians, which took 12 athletes to Paris this year, has won five titles, including the last four championships between 2020 and 2023.

This year, the Brasileirão Feminino reaches the semifinals only with teams from São Paulo. The teams from Railway and São Paulo compete for a place in the final in the return games on Sunday (8) at 4 pm, with broadcast on TV Brazil.

THE TV Brazil will also show the final matches, on September 15th and 29th, scheduled for 10:30 am.