Brazil’s Independence Day has become the moment for the country’s nationalist, right-wing movement to take to the streets, protest the left and hoist the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag.
This year, it carried a new banner.
An American flag the size of a basketball court unfurled over several lanes of São Paulo’s main avenue on Sunday, with demonstrators holding the flag aloft as they protested the expected conviction this week of former President Jair Bolsonaro on charges of planning a coup.
The flag was a message of thanks to President Trump for trying to intervene in Mr. Bolsonaro’s case. It became the defining image of the day’s enormous protests, plastered across social media and newspaper front pages. And it may soon be at the center of a police investigation that could involve the National Football League.
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The giant flag could be the subject of an investigation. Two congressional leaders in Brazil on Monday formally asked the nation’s federal police to investigate the flag’s origins, noting that it appeared to be the same size of a large American flag used on the field during a National Football League game in São Paulo about 36 hours earlier.
“There are strong indications that this is the same artifact: the length-to-width proportions are practically identical, the color tones are similar” and the location and timing align, said the request by Lindbergh Farias and Pedro Campos, two leftist members of Congress. “Given the complex and costly logistics of transporting a flag of such size, there is a concrete likelihood that the same piece was reused.”
The politicians claimed that if the flag was given to supporters by the N.F.L. or another international company, it would violate Brazilian laws against the participation of foreign entities in politics in Brazil. They asked the police to analyze images of the flag and depose N.F.L. officials.
Brazil’s federal police declined to comment.
Brian McCarthy, an N.F.L. spokesman, said that the politicians are wrong and the league’s American flag was not at the protest. “The flag remains at the warehouse of the league’s vendor,” he said.