Big Bahia spending echoes beyond the football pitch

Since January last year, Brazilian football club Bahia has spent an eyebrow-raising amount of money on buying new players.

According to German football statistics site Transfermarkt, the club’s total outlay on signing players was EUR 33.63 million (USD 36.58 million) throughout that period, while not bringing in a single cent from sales in the opposite direction. While this may sound like small fry by European football standards, only three teams in Brazil spent more on transfers in that period — including the country’s two richest clubs.

Meanwhile, Fortaleza, one of Bahia’s regional rivals, has spent EUR 13.77 million since last January, receiving almost exactly the same in proceeds from player sales.

Bahia and Fortaleza often vie for the title of the best football team in Brazil’s Northeast region, an area of the country that has plenty of passion for the sport, but few national-level triumphs to show for it. But Bahia’s profligate spending has yet to bear fruits: they narrowly avoided relegation to the second division last season, while the more frugal Fortaleza comfortably finished six places above them in the league table.

But beyond a simple case of executive decisions at the head of a sports club, the matter of Bahia’s checkbook spreads beyond football, branching into politics, finance, and oil.

Bahia City FC

A simple explanation for Bahia’s enthusiastic transfer spending would be to look at the club’s owners. In 2022, the club from the city of Salvador was bought for BRL 1 billion (USD 200 million) by the City Group, a process finalized and made legally binding at the start of 2023, when Bahia began its spending spree.

The City Group is a holding company founded in 2013 that owns and runs football clubs around the world and is named after its flagship interest, English champions Manchester City, of which it holds a 100 percent stake. The company also owns clubs such as New York City, Melbourne City, Mumbai City, and holds significant equity in current Spanish league leaders Girona. And since last year, it...