Dear friends, 

Professional and, above all, medical reasons prevented me from attending the Board of Directors meeting that dealt with the Approval of Accounts for the 2017 fiscal year. I will continue to be absent from the Club and my obligations until these impediments cease and, if I understand that they will not cease with the necessary brevity, I will step aside permanently until I am fully able to regularly perform the activities that have been honorably granted to me. 

At a meeting where we were supposed to celebrate the best financial report ever for a Brazilian football club, vanity, political ambition, and the undeniable human impulse toward destruction dominated the event. A shift in focus that, unfortunately, in recent years, it has been repeating itself. 

Worse still, instead of a healthy discussion on technical issues that lead to transparency and the democratization of information, brutality, rudeness, and cowardice have taken center stage, creating only noise but contributing nothing. Where chaos thrives, nothing grows..  The violence only matters to those who have nothing to contribute because does not have any other argument that can validate their positions. 

The meeting's agenda items were solely the approval of accounts and budget execution. Regarding the first item, what should be judged is whether the published financial statements adequately and legally reflect the financial inflows and outflows. of the ClubThe second item aims to determine whether the budget approved by the Club's Board of Directors was properly met. Any other matter, no matter how important, should be subject to questioning, appropriate and transparent responses, and, if necessary, the initiation of procedures to determine any potential responsibilities. 

The reports of the Fiscal Council, of the Deliberative Council Committees involved, as well as the opinion of the Independent Auditor, make it very clear to that the balance sheet is technically perfect and in line with the relevant legislation. A balance sheet without merit, published in the most important newspaper in Brazilian economic circles, celebrated by analysts and specialized media. A "nation of millions," as we call it.  

The budget execution has already been subject to accountability and deliberation by the Club's Board of Directors. The Club's current management has not only met its targets, but far exceeded them! 

These are the data and facts. Any questions, if any, must be clarified. Anything else is irrelevant to the meeting's objectives. 

But I do not intend to stray from these issues outside the agenda. For every question there are 02aspects to be considered: The motivation and its object. I will notquestion the object of the questions raised. Any good faith query is legitimate and must be answered. But as for the motivations, they arethe obvious: An election year, people looking for crumbs of power and driven by vanity for whom the worse, the better. Personal interest, in many of these people, supersedes the real interests of the CRF. 

I heard of advisors (logically, the minority) wanting the balance sheet to be modified to worsen their results, obeying new accounting criteria that only become effective for the fiscal year following that of its real reference, that is, it would be like refusing the title of champion of a tournament because, according to the rules that will be in force the following year, the title would not be won! 

Advisors who claimed that the balance sheet was doctored, attributing a crime to the professionals and managers involved in its preparation. Perhaps these same counselors could answer How is it that with all this makeup, the CRF spent 2017 taking out fewer loans and investing more than its budget had anticipated? For this delusion to be real, in addition to forging a balance sheet, we should also issue paper money! 

But there's the issue of football prize money. This issue has nothing to do with Flamengo's current sporting performance, which is clearly far below expectations. Prize money has existed since the dawn of time. Whether for matches won, titles won, spots in competitions, or even, in a past we insist on forgetting, to prevent relegation! We have people protesting the prize money for a spot in the Libertadores, but I haven't seen them protesting when the money was intended to offset a potentially greater embarrassment—that is, a change in the Brazilian Championship. 

The awards are a current part of the football budget. They are there and have been approved by the relevant authorities. Their use is systematic. and payment criteria belong, as they have always belonged, to the Club's Football Department, which has the statutory powers for such management. Agreeing or not with these criteria is subjective, accusing them of being illegal is slanderous! 

Football is going badly, but that shouldn't be the trigger for bringing à A veritable inferiority complex emerges, where other areas of the Club that boast extraordinary results are contaminated and brought down to the same level. It's not enough for these people that football is doing poorly. Everything has to go very badly. Thus, amidst the chaos and noise, no one will remember to ask these same people what they're looking for, what motivates them, and what they really want. 

What saddens me most is realizing that Flamengo won't let go of its self-devouring personality, which is even more pronounced during election years. We won't get where we deserve to be because when we get there, we'll look for some reason to be unhappy. 

Jayme de Carvalho's quote, engraved in our gymnasium, says, "Wherever you find a Flamengo fan, you'll find a friend." Those were different times. Today, our formerPresident Marcio Braga, it makes much more sense: Flamengo is a destroyer of friendships! 

With a red and black hug, 

Claudio Pracownik