Campeonato Paulista · History

The Campeonato Paulista, known as the Paulistão, is the state football championship of São Paulo. It has been run since 1941 by the São Paulo State Football Federation (FPF), founded on 22 April of that year. The first edition was played in 1902, between April and October, under the Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball, which had been set up in December 1901, making it the oldest state championship in Brazil. Corinthians, Palmeiras, Santos and São Paulo account for the vast majority of titles, although clubs from the interior and the wider metropolitan area have also won it.

Origins and the amateur era

The 1902 title went to São Paulo Athletic Club, a side tied to the city’s British community. Charles Miller, who had brought the first balls and the rules of the game back from England, was that season’s top scorer. In its early decades São Paulo football was split by disputes between administrators: from 1913 to 1916 the Liga Paulista and the Associação Paulista de Esportes Atléticos (APEA) staged parallel championships, and the rift returned between 1926 and 1929, this time between the APEA and the Liga dos Amadores de Futebol. As a result, the roll of honour for that period lists more than one champion in some years.

The move to professionalism

Players began to be paid in 1933, and that year’s Paulistão was the first professional state championship in São Paulo. The following years still saw rival bodies and changes of name in the running of the game, until the founding of the FPF in 1941 brought the competition under a single authority. The federation has managed the championship and the state’s lower divisions ever since.

Pelé and the Santos years

Between 1957 and 1965 Pelé finished every edition as the championship’s top scorer. In 1958 he scored 58 goals in a single Paulistão, a figure no other player has matched in one edition. That spell coincided with Santos’s most successful period in the state competition. Decades later the Vila Belmiro club dominated again, winning in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and once more in 2015 and 2016, and reaching eight consecutive finals between 2009 and 2016.

Champions beyond the big four

In 1986 Inter de Limeira beat Palmeiras in the final at the Morumbi and became the first club from the interior of the state to win the title. In 1990 Bragantino and Novorizontino contested the first final between two interior sides, and Bragantino took the trophy. Ituano won the championship in 2002 and again in 2014, when they beat Santos in the final 7-6 on penalties. In 2004 São Caetano, from the ABC region near the capital, won their only state title by defeating Paulista of Jundiaí in a final played at the Pacaembu.

Format and the 2020s finals

Since 2017 the top division, the Série A1, has brought together 16 clubs split into four groups of four, and from 2020 most knockout rounds have been settled in a single match, with the exception of the final. Corinthians won three in a row between 2017 and 2019. Palmeiras beat Corinthians in the 2020 final, lost the 2021 final to São Paulo, who won the second leg 2-0 at the Morumbi, and then took three straight titles: in 2022 against São Paulo, in 2023 against Água Santa and in 2024 against Santos. In 2025 Corinthians beat Palmeiras in the final to claim their 31st title.

Roll of honour

By the FPF’s count, Corinthians are the most successful club with 31 titles, ahead of Palmeiras, Santos and São Paulo, the last two with 22 each. Matches between these four clubs fill much of the competition’s record: Corinthians and Palmeiras contest the Derby Paulista, while São Paulo and Santos complete the group of major clubs from the capital and the coast. On 8 March 2026 Palmeiras beat Novorizontino 2-1 at the Estádio Jorge Ismael de Biasi in Novo Horizonte to win their 27th Paulista title, their fifth since 2020.