While Brazil's squad was grinding through World Cup preparations in New Jersey, their federation president was reportedly running a very different kind of away-day operation.
Samir Xaud, 42-year-old president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), stands accused of using federation money to fund personal travel — including flying a woman to New York for eight days, staying at the Hyatt Regency Grand Central in a room allegedly booked under his own name. The bill? Around $11,500. He reportedly paid it back only after a Brazilian news outlet came knocking.
The itinerary that raised eyebrows
The alleged sequence of events is, to put it mildly, logistically ambitious. According to Portal Leo Dias, Xaud flew fitness entrepreneur Camila Cristina Andrade to New York, where the pair were photographed dining at Harry Cipriani on June 3 and reportedly left in a federation-rented vehicle. He then left her there, flew back to Brazil to attend the women's national team's match against the United States on June 8, and then continued to Mexico City — where he met up with his wife of over 20 years, Natalia, for the World Cup's opening ceremony. Three countries. Two women. One federation credit card.
This wasn't an isolated incident, either. The same outlet reported that Xaud used federation funds to send model and influencer Tamares Fernandes Barcellos to Qatar for a FIFA Intercontinental World Cup match in December 2025 — business class on Emirates, four nights at the Ritz-Carlton Doha, with the federation allegedly picking up a hotel tab of nearly $3,400.
The CBF pushed back hard. Their statement insisted that all federation expenses are "exclusively linked to institutional activities" and that personal costs are covered by directors themselves. The confederation also leaned heavily on its favourite words: transparency, responsibility, integrity. The problem is that those words carry less weight when you're reimbursing a hotel bill the day a journalist calls you about it.
Bad timing for Brazilian football
The optics could hardly be worse. Brazil head into a home-continent World Cup under serious scrutiny — on and off the pitch — and the last thing the Seleção needs is their governing body's president becoming a tabloid fixture. Xaud reportedly stepped back temporarily from Brazil's New Jersey training base as the story broke, though he was pictured in a luxury suite watching the team's 3-0 win over Haiti alongside FIFA's president and a row of Brazilian football legends.
For a nation that treats football as a near-religious institution, governance scandals hit differently. Brazilian football has a long, painful history of federation corruption — the CBF's former president Ricardo Teixeira fled the country amid bribery allegations, and his successor Marco Polo del Nero was banned for life by FIFA. Xaud isn't facing anything at that level yet, but the pattern of alleged misuse — family members, friends, and women reportedly sent to sporting events on the federation's dime — suggests this story isn't going away quietly.
Whether he reimbursed the federation for the Qatar flights, or the other travel costs beyond that New York hotel, has not been confirmed.
