André ‘Negão’ Santos Guiding the Way for Porto Sport Club’s Meteoric Ascent
On April 22, 1500, a Portuguese fleet led by Pedro Álvares Cabral docked at Porto Seguro, or “Safe Harbor,” and discovered the land that would come to be known as Brazil. Over the next half-millennium, Brazil would go through various changes, spending three centuries as a Portuguese colony before establishing a thriving, independent state and cementing itself as the most successful national team in world football. But despite its historical significance, it wasn’t until two years ago that Porto Seguro got its first professional sports team, thanks in large part to the work of André ‘Negão’ Santos.
Laying Down Roots in Porto Seguro
Born and raised in Matão, a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Santos grew up dreaming of becoming a professional football player, although he never came close to realizing these ambitions. 15 years ago, he left for his hometown for Porto Seguro, and started making a name for himself in the real estate business. However, it wasn’t long before he realized that there was a void in his new state of Bahia: despite having nearly 15 million people, Bahia only had two clubs that frequented the Brazilian top-flight: Esporte Clube Bahia and Esporte Clube Vitória. Porto Seguro, meanwhile, had 150,000 residents, but it didn’t have a single professional club to its name.
“It was my first experience in sport – football came about by chance for us. We are entrepreneurs and business owners in the real estate development and construction industry in Porto Seguro, and we could see the desire of the people here to create a football club in the city,” stated Santos in an exclusive RATINGS interview. “The motherland of Brazil never had a professional football team playing in official competitions; all we had were amateur teams. Over the years, this idea has become ingrained in the partners’ minds, and we’ve managed to put this together and assemble the team. As real estate investors, we have a lot of contact with people from the city, we started to put down roots and have the same feelings as a resident of Porto Seguro.
We saw this deficiency in the far south of Bahia: the nearest football club was 380km from Porto Seguro, over an eight-hour drive. Porto Seguro is a significantly larger city and is nationally and internationally better known than many of those currently competing in these professional championships. Our goal was to bring more to Porto Seguro and carry the name even further. Porto Seguro is a worldwide tourist destination, but it hasn’t been known for sports up until now.”
Despite not having any experience whatsoever in professional football, Santos, 48, decided to lead the push and collaborate with a number of different investors in order to deliver the city’s first-ever football club. Encouraged by the amateur side Seleção de Porto Seguro’s runners-up finish in Bahia’s Intermunicipal competition in 2023, Santos teamed up with minority investors like Ehler Pessoa, Sandro Duarte, and Jake Sinsheimer – the Head of Agentic Commerce GTM at Stripe, who had come across Porto Seguro whilst vacationing in Brazil – and put the wheels into motion.
In November 2023, the group filed its application with the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (CBF) and the Federação Bahiana de Futebol (FBF), and in January 2024, they had their submission approved. And on February 2, 2024, Porto Sport Club was officially founded in the FBF headquarters in Lauro de Freitas after becoming affiliated with the FBF, a ceremony that was attended by Mayor Jânio Natal, President of the Bahia Football Federation Ricardo Lima, FBF Competitions Director Taise Galvão, President André Santos, and Porto Sport Club directors Sandro Duarte and Ehler Pessoa.
“The biggest problem during the entire process was the bureaucracy…it still prevents Brazil from flying higher. First of all, the paperwork is always the hardest part. Secondly, we see it in the matter of investments from the government itself, from the state itself, from public bodies. You can see all over that football clubs have investment from public entities; despite being a small business, you have to have investment from the state or the federal government. not just in football, but all sports. Bureaucracy is always what gets in the way, and the occasional lack of investment from public entities is a bit of a hindrance. But, in the beginning, we were successful in getting it working, and we finalized the team creation process within six months, which was relatively quick.”
Blazing a New Trail with Cacique
The second team from the far south of Bahia to receive a professional license after Eunápolis Esporte Clube in 1990, Porto Sport Club have made history as a Sociedade Anônima de Futebol (Public Limited Football Company) constituted by resident members, entrepreneurs, investors, sports supporters, and those passionate about football and Porto Seguro. After a cumbersome period which saw them adhere to all the different legal processes at the municipal, state, and federal level and become federalized with the CBF and FBF, Porto Sport Club (also known as Porto-BA) finally kicked off their playing journey on June 8, 2024, in a 0–0 away draw against SSA FC.
“Football in Brazil is divided by regions: we have the Paulista championship, the Carioca championship, and the Mineiro championship, but despite being the oldest football championship in Brazil, it doesn’t have the same value as that of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro, which creates more difficulties. Portos a tourist city, which means that all the costs are higher because we play games during a time when everyone is on vacation.”
“In order to set up the entire structure behind a championship, which involves renting houses for the athletes and buying food for them, everything gets more expensive. I think that’s the difficulty we have today in Porto Seguro due to its unequal valuation. We are in a very populated region that’s far away from the big cities, which is good because we can attract the best pieces to assemble a base, but what leaves us further behind is the lesser valuation of football in Bahia.”
Despite battling these unique circumstances, Porto Sport Club has kept its pedal to the medal and has gone about implementing a five-year plan for success both on and off the pitch. Among these priorities are promotion to the Série A of the Campeonato Baiano (Bahia State Championship), participation in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série C (Brazilian Championship Series C), linked to participation in the Copa do Brasil (Brazilian Cup) and the Copa do Nordeste (Northeast Cup).
Soaring Through Brazil’s Footballing Pyramid
Under the watchful eye of manager Beto Oliveira, Porto were able to hit the ground running and punch above their weight, defeating Fluminense de Feira in the 2024 Campeonato Baiano Second Division semifinals and securing automatic promotion to the Campeonato Baiano, only to lose in the finals to Colo Colo. They continued their meteoric progression in the following year, finishing fifth in the 10-team table and qualifying for the Brazilian fourth division. With Santos running the ship, Porto have been able to ascend through the ranks whilst remaining financially sustainable.
“In order to start thinking about structural investments, the club needs to first consolidate itselfas a Série A club. That’s what we’re pushing for: to establish ourselves as a top-tier team in the Bahia State Championship. When you’re in Serie A, it’s easier for you to consolidate, and after that, think about making investments in infrastructure and bringing in partners. We look for partners to make structural investments, because football has always been and always will be something that generates resources and profit from the youth academy. If you have a strong academy, you end up not having to spend a lot of money on signings and end up putting your players on the market.
What we’re doing today is consolidating the club. The club has already consolidated itself in its second year, competing in the first division state championship and competing in the national championship. We’re going to continue doing this good work, so that we can bring investors and investments to the club, so that it can be invested in the structural part. Today, we use what we have, which is its features and structures of the municipality’s public agencies. We want, of course, to build a football arena and a training center, but to do that, we need to consolidate the club, and we need to bring in partners, and that’s what we’ve been looking for in the market.”
After kicking off the new year with a 3-2 win against Jacuipense, Porto proceeded to draw 1-1 in its next four matches before losing 3-1 to top-flight outfit Bahia, but they would bounce back with a 1-0 win vs. Galicia and a 0-0 draw at Alagoinhas, before brushing past Serra Blanca 2-1 in the first round of the Copa do Brasil. The past fortnight has been less hospitable to the ‘Cacique,’ who failed to reach the Campeonato Baiano semifinals after missing out on a victory and losing 3-1 to Juazeirense in the final group stage match. And on March 3, they were sent packing from the Copa do Brasil after losing 6-0 against second-tier Clube de Regatas Brasil.
Nevertheless, Porto will have the opportunity to rebound in just a few weeks as they look to compete in the 2026 Campeonato Brasileiro Série D, which will feature 96 teams across the Brazilian fourth division. Porto will compete against Democrata GV, Real Noroeste, Rio Branco-ES, Tombense, and Vitória-ES in Grupo A12, with the season taking place from April 5 to September 18 and featuring both a league season and knockout playoffs. And if they can reach the semifinals and finish as one of the four best teams in the league, they will secure their third consecutive promotion to Brazil’s third division.
“We had a plan to get to where we are today in five years, and we’ve managed to be very proactive and have achieved these promotions in two years. You have to anticipate everything that you thought would happen five years from now, and that’s what we’ve been doing: working to be able to find new ways and new directions. We were surprised, but we knew that everything would work out given the work that was being done.”