Campeonato de Futebol Amador de São Paulo

The Campeonato de Futebol Amador de São Paulo (in English: Amateur Football Championship of São Paulo), also known as the Campeonato de Futebol Varzeano de São Paulo, is the main official competition for amateur football association based in the city of São Paulo, Brazil.

History
In the early 1940s, the federal government directly intervened in the organization of Brazilian football to resolve the intense disputes between amateurism and professionalism in the country. As a result, there was a complete separation between amateur and professional teams/athletes – a unique characteristic of Brazilian – and the government mandated that each federative units of Brazil should have only one governing body for controlling football at the state level. This led to the creation of the Federação Paulista de Futebol (FPF), which became the sole recognized organization to manage football throughout the state of São Paulo.

The FPF reorganized state football by establishing distinct and exclusive departments to manage football for amateurs and professionals, each with their own statutes and regulations within the federation. In the case of amateur football, numerous local leagues were established in cities to accommodate the numerous existing teams that chose to remain amateur, while others opted for professionalism and could participate in the league system of this category.

In São Paulo City, there was even a separation within amateurism itself, with three autonomous leagues. The Campeonato Amador da Capital (Capital Amateur Championship) brought together a select group of non-classist amateur clubs from São Paulo. The Campeonato Varzeano (São Paulo Varzeano Championship) was the largest in terms of participants, consisting of dozens of district sub-leagues from the city of São Paulo, whose winners competed for the street champion title of the season. Finally, there were "classist leagues" exclusively composed of teams formed by employees of specific sectors of the industry, commerce, and services, as well as public employees, such as the Commerce League (ACEA) and the Industrial League (LECI). At the end of the season, there was a competition known as the Torneio dos Campeões Amadores da Capital (Tournament of Amateur Champions of the Capital of São Paulo) to determine the city's representative in the final of the São Paulo State Amateur Football Championship.

In the 1970s, the FPF stopped directly organizing competitions for amateur team from São Paulo. It then fell to the Municipal Department of Sports and Leisure (SEME) of the São Paulo City Hall to take on the responsibility of organizing an official competition, the Campeonato Varzeano da SEME (São Paulo SEME Varzeano Championship).

The FPF briefly resumed the management of the municipal championship between 1985 and 1992, only to lose interest in its direct organization again. With the structural support of the FPF and sponsorship from Kaiser company, the SEME created the Copa Kaiser/SEME de Futebol Amador (Kaiser/SEME Amateur Football Cup), which had its first edition in 1995. Over the years, the tournament became a success in the city's amateur football scene and grew to the point of having two divisions with promotion and relegation.

The Copa Kaiser/SEME was discontinued shortly after its 2004 edition, replaced by the Copa Metropolitana (Metropolitan Cup), a competition conceived by the then Department of Youth, Sport, and Leisure (SELJ) of the São Paulo state government. It featured teams from São Paulo and its surrounding cities.

In 2007, the Copa Kaiser/SEME was revived. However, in 2014, the brewery company announced the end of its sponsorship. Another local beer brand, Itaipava, was announced as the new sponsor of the amateur competition, but the tournament was canceled a few weeks before its scheduled start on July 26, 2015.