What Brazilian law requires at the gate
The General Sports Law of 14 June 2023 (Lei 14.597/2023) sets the rules. Article 148 requires every arena with a capacity of more than 20,000 to monitor its turnstiles on camera and to identify spectators biometrically, and it gave the stadiums two years from the law taking effect to install the system. Article 158 then makes the registration a condition of entry: anyone over 16 must be registered in the biometric system to get in.
In practice the Rio clubs use facial recognition. Your face is your ticket, so the ticket has to be bought in your name, and the registration has to match the ID you carry.
Source: Lei 14.597/2023 on planalto.gov.br, Articles 148 and 158, read October 2026.
The four club portals
Each big club runs its own registration and ticket sale. As of October 2026:
| Club | Face registration | Ticket sale | ID for foreigners |
|---|
| Flamengo | biometria.flamengo.com.br | Club ticket platform | Passport |
|---|
| Fluminense | fluminense.bepass.com.br | futebolcard.com | Passport or DNI |
|---|
| Botafogo | Ingresse account | botafogo.ingresse.com | Passport |
|---|
| Vasco da Gama | vasco.eleventickets.com | vasco.eleventickets.com | Not stated |
|---|
Sources: Fluminense match information on fluminense.com.br (October 2026); Flamengo and Vasco rules as published for 2026 games via NetVasco, April 2026 and NetVasco, September 2026; Botafogo via NetVasco, October 2025, ticket page checked October 2026.
Buying on a club portal yourself
The order is the same at every club, and the Fluminense instructions spell it out most clearly:
- Register your face once on the club’s biometrics site. The site takes the photo of your face and asks for a picture of your passport, taken out of any plastic cover and against a plain background. Do not register twice.
- Open an account on the ticket platform with exactly the same name, passport number and e-mail address as in the face registration.
- Wait for the general sale. Members of the club’s supporter programme buy first, in waves by membership level, and the public sale opens afterwards; for games in high demand, little may be left by then.
- Buy the ticket in your own name. Every ticket holder needs a face registration of their own, so a friend cannot buy for you without your details.
- On match day the camera at the turnstile is the check. Carry the passport you registered with.
Flamengo moved its face registration to a separate website in March 2025, so it can be done at any time before a purchase, and fans who registered once do not repeat it (MKT Esportivo). At Botafogo the registration ends with the message “Rosto já cadastrado”, face already registered, and only then is the ticket purchase possible.
Where visitors get stuck
The portals are in Portuguese, and many forms still open with a field for the CPF, the Brazilian taxpayer number. Fluminense states that foreigners can use a passport or DNI instead; Flamengo asks foreigners for a passport. At the Fluminense ticket counters an original physical document is required, and photos of documents are not accepted. Sales windows are short: the online sale for a Fluminense home game closes at the end of the first half, and the presale for members can take most of the tickets before the public sale opens.
An agency removes most of this. It buys the ticket, knows the sale dates and tells you what to send. What it cannot remove is the registration itself, because the face that enters the stadium has to be yours.
When an agency asks for your passport
The face registration needs your passport details, so a request for them is normal. Two reviews below show both sides: one traveller describes a smooth entry after the biometrics were matched to the ticket, another received a text message without warning that demanded passport copies. Answer through the contact named in your booking confirmation, and ask the agency there if a message arrives from somewhere else. One Futebol Tour listing states that there is no refund if the biometric registration is not completed, so reply in good time.
