FLAMENGO INTENDS TO COMPETE IN THE CLASSICS AT MARACANÃ EVEN WITH THEIR OWN STADIUM

Despite the project for its own stadium, Flamengo's board intends to hold the classics against Rio de Janeiro's rivals at Maracanã. That is at least the idea now while the arena proposal is still in its initial phase of development.

Rio de Janeiro City Hall expropriated the land of Gasologista, in the Center, which belonged to a real estate fund managed by Caixa Econômica Federal. The objective is to sell the area to Flamengo, which intends to build an arena with between 75 thousand and 80 thousand seats. At the same time, the club has just obtained, together with Fluminense, the Maracanã concession for 20 years. Games to be held by both teams at the stadium were put up for bidding.

Flamengo's board of directors received a recommendation that classics against rivals from Rio could involve vandalism if held at the new stadium. There is indeed this type of consequence in some of the São Paulo games. Therefore, there is a view that it would be better to keep these matches at Maracanã.

All other clashes, including games against big players from outside Rio, would be at the new stadium. Currently, Flamengo plays all games against Fluminense and Vasco, as home and away, at Maracanã. Only the away games against Botafogo are at the Nilton Santos Stadium.

Obviously, holding derbies at Maracanã helps the future maintenance of waste picker sales at the stadium. At the same time, it reduces the number of matches available for the new arena. This is the plan of the current board that initiated the stadium project. It is not known what the idea of ​​future administrations will be.