Botafogo DF

Formation and merger

On 1 July 1894, the Club de Regatas Botafogo was founded in Rio de Janeiro as a rowing club.

On 12 August 1904, another club was founded in the neighborhood: the Electro Club, the name first given to the Botafogo Football Club. The idea came during an algebra lesson at Alfredo Gomes College. The Electro Club was founded, but its name did not last. After a suggestion from Dona Chiquitota, Flávio's grandmother, the club finally became the Botafogo Football Club, on its 18 September. The colors were black and white like those of Juventus FC, (who took the colours from Notts County F.C., the oldest professional football team in the world.) the team of Itamar Tavares, one of the club's founders. Its badge was drawn by Basílio Vianna Jr., in Swiss style with the BFC monogram. The Botafogo Football Club would soon become one of the strongest football teams in Rio de Janeiro, winning the championships of 1907, 1910, 1912 and more.

With the same name, the same location, the same colours and most importantly the same supporters, it seemed inevitable that the clubs would merge. They did so on 8 December 1942, after a basketball match between both clubs, when the Botafogo Football Club player Armando Albano died suddenly, that the idea of a merger began. On this tragic occasion, the president of the Club de Regatas Botafogo, Augusto Frederico Schmidt, spoke: "At this time, I declare to Albano that his last match ended with the victory of his team. We won't play the time left on the clock. We all want the young fighter to leave this great night as a winner. This is how we salute him." Eduardo Góis Trindade, the president of the Botafogo Football Club said: "Between the matches of our clubs, only one can be the winner: Botafogo!." And then Schmidt declared the fusion: "What else do we need for our clubs to become one?." The Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas finally came into being. The Football Club's badge became black, and the monogram substituted by the Clube de Regatas' lone star.

On the field

The team won the Campeonato Carioca in 1907, 1910 and 1912. In 1909 the team beat Mangueira 24–0, which remains the highest score in Brazilian football.

They won further state titles in 1930, 1932, 1933, 1934 and 1935.

In the 1940s, after the creation of the Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas, the team's best player was Heleno de Freitas. However, Heleno did not win a championship for Botafogo. He scored 204 goals in 233 matches, but went to the Boca Juniors in 1948, the year Botafogo won its 9th state championship.

They won the Campeonato Carioca in 1957, 1961 and 1962, and in 1968 they won Serie A, becoming the first carioca club to win the Brazilian league.

1989 ended a period of 21 years without a title when the club won the state championship, retaining the trophy in 1990.

In the 1990s, Botafogo won Copa Conmebol (the precursor of the current Copa Sudamericana). And in 1995 they won the Brazilian League for the second time in club's history, after drawing 1–1 the second leg of the Final against Santos FC at São Paulo.

Botafogo would be relegated to the Second Division after ranking last in the Brazilian League of 2002. In 2003, Botafogo ranked second in Brazil's Second division (after Palmeiras) and returned to the First Division.

In 2006, the club won the Rio de Janeiro State Championship for the 18th time, and again in 2010 and 2013 with the iconic players Loco Abreu and Clarence Seedorf, respectively.

In the 2020 edition of the Série A, Botafogo performed poorly and ended the championship in the last position, causing the club's relegation to the Série B for their third time in history.

Nowadays, Botafogo is the only club to have won titles in three different centuries, including the state championship for rowing in 1899.

The SAF Era

At the beginning of 2020, Botafogo underwent a series of internal audits to spin off its football division as a for-profit corporate entity, owned by the club, but which could be portioned and sold to investors. This was due to unprecedented legislation allowing for football clubs to be operated as corporations, and would be a solution to the severe financial crisis the club had faced for decades. Relegation to the Série B, however, delayed these plans.

2021 saw Botafogo's debt reach one billion real. They placed 6th in the Rio de Janeiro State Championship, after a penalty decision lost to the also relegated Vasco da Gama. The club was off to a middling start to the Série B season, but bounced back after the hiring of manager Enderson Moreira, who was able to bring Botafogo back to the top tier of Brazilian football, as champions of the 2021 edition of Série B. It was Botafogo's second Série B title.