Botafogo Appeals to CAS for Million-Dollar Debt with Atlanta United
The South American champion, Botafogo, owned by the American businessman John Textor, went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Wednesday in a dispute over an unpaid transfer fee of $21 million to the Major League Soccer (MLS) club, Atlanta United. The Brazilian club is challenging the FIFA order that demands full payment for the signing of the Argentine attacker Thiago Almada, world champion in 2022, after the first two installments were not paid last year. The CAS reported that the hearing on Botafogo’s appeal against FIFA and Atlanta United took place on Wednesday. A deadline for the court’s verdict in Lausanne, Switzerland, was not provided.Almada, 24 years old, played one match from the bench for Argentina in the 2022 World Cup. He currently plays for Atlético de Madrid, which in July became his fourth different club, including two owned by Textor, in less than 13 months. Almada was a designated player on the Atlanta team when MLS oversaw a record transfer of $21 million to Botafogo last June, according to the FIFA document. After playing for Argentina in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Almada moved to Brazil and helped Botafogo win the continental title of the Copa Libertadores. The FIFA verdict revealed that Botafogo was to make payments of $3 million to Atlanta in July and September of last year to settle the total amount before September 2026. The first two payments were not made and MLS sent notices of default to Textor’s club. The $6 million “were indeed still outstanding” in February, said the FIFA judge in the ruling, which imposed a more severe fine on Botafogo due to its “previous sanctions” from the world football governing body.Botafogo requested “more time to ‘sort it out'” when the Rio de Janeiro club responded to MLS’s first request for a scheduled overdue payment on behalf of Atlanta.
FIFA
FIFA imposed a fine of $150,000 plus $25,000 in legal costs on Botafogo. It also gave Textor’s club a 45-day deadline to pay its debts or be banned from registering new players. The sanctions await the outcome of the appeal to the CAS. In January, weeks after Botafogo won the Libertadores, Almada was loaned to Lyon, Textor’s club in France, for the rest of the season. Lyon played under the threat of relegation from Ligue 1 due to its unstable finances and finished sixth, qualifying for this season’s Europa League. This resulted in the winner of the English FA Cup, Crystal Palace, where Textor was a minority owner last season, being relegated to the third-tier Conference League due to UEFA’s integrity rules on club ownership. Palace was unsuccessful in an appeal to the CAS to revoke their relegation.In this regard, the sole judge emphasized that a repeated infringement will be considered an aggravating circumstance and will lead to a more severe sanction.
FIFA
