Football championships of the states of Brazil (women's football)
The soccer championships of the states of Brazil in women's soccer ( Portuguese Campeonatos estaduais de futebol feminino do Brasil ) have been held since the 1980s and are held by the associations of the individual states.
history
The practice of football by women in Brazil is documented as early as the first years of the 20th century, the early phase in the history of this sport, which began its rise to the sport of the masses at that time. Women's football did not experience any appreciable acceptance in the social order of that time, which was characterized by patriarchal thought patterns. By legislative decree (Decreto-Lei No. 3.199, Art. 54) of April 14, 1941, President Getúlio Vargas forbade the Brazilian woman to practice sports that were “incompatible with her natural constitution” (incompativeis com as condições de sua natureza) . Referring to this, the national sports council CND explicitly forbade the organization of football and other sports for women in clubs. In 1979, the CND ended this prohibition and declared that women are basically allowed to practice and organize all kinds of sports. Immediately afterwards, clubs set up their first women's teams. A pioneer was the EC Radar from Rio de Janeiro , which was the first club to limit itself exclusively to women's football and to try to run it as professionally as possible. The first official state championships were held in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Pará in 1983, followed by Bahia the following year .
With the exception of the EC Radar, women's football in Brazil went almost unnoticed and undocumented in the 1980s. Championships were only held irregularly. It also remained geographically limited to the metropolitan regions on the coast. Only after the women's national team revealed a below-average level at the first World Cup competitions was a professionalization process in women's football initiated on the initiative of the CBF for the first time in the mid-1990s , in the course of which most of the country's major clubs founded their women's sections for the first time. Regular championship competitions were also organized in almost all states along the coast. Due to a lack of audience interest and a lack of media support, women's football experienced its first setback after the turn of the millennium, which moved the major clubs to dissolve their women's teams for financial reasons. Since then, women's football has been supported primarily by smaller clubs from the rural hinterland of the states and run at an amateur level. The best talents in the country such as B. Formiga and Marta migrated relatively quickly to wealthy leagues in other European or North American countries. Despite all of this, women's football established itself throughout the country at that time, including in the inland and structurally weak states of the interior and in the Amazon basin.
At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the CBF undertook a second professionalisation boost in women's football. With the establishment of the Copa do Brasil Feminino in 2007, the first national competition was created, which is open to all clubs nationwide to participate in the state championships if they qualify. After that, the remaining states also hosted their respective championships. In 2013, the national championship competition was finally introduced, and since the 2017 season, participation has also been via qualification through the state championship. Since then, there have been increasing numbers of clubs that concentrate their activities entirely on professional women's football with the ambition to secure a place in the national top in the "founding years" of this sport, which means that only a single club has sporting dominance in its state occupies. So z. B. the AE Kindermann in Santa Catarina , the São Francisco EC in Bahia , the Foz Cataratas FC in Paraná , or most recently the EC Iranduba in Amazonas .
The level of competition at the national championships is still at an amateur level, especially when compared to European women's football. In some states there are no longer four clubs participating in the competition. There is also a high gap in the sporting and economic areas between the clubs, of which only a few can run women's football in a structurally and financially stable framework. An exception is the championship of the state of São Paulo , in which a large number of clubs are concentrated that operate women's football in professionally managed structures and accordingly have a higher sporting and competitive level. The clubs of the Paulista State therefore currently occupy a dominant position in women's football in Brazil, their championship has almost the same sporting significance as the national championship.
For some time now , the professionalization of women's football throughout Latin America has also been promoted by the continental association CONMEBOL , which from the 2019 season onwards has declared the maintenance of a women's section as a condition for participating in the Copa Libertadores in men's football, which has already resulted in a majority of the financially strong traditional clubs Brazil made or announced their return to women's football.
State Championships
The following table shows the soccer championships of the federal states, the year ( J ) of their first events and their record champions and current titleholders (2017) with the number of previous titles ( T ).
See also
- Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol Feminino (Brazilian Women's Football Championship)
- Copa do Brasil de Futebol Feminino (Brazilian Women's Football Cup)
- Football championships of the states of Brazil (men's football)