Sao Paulo, April 20 (IANS): Armed men gunned down eight members of a fan club of the popular Brazilian football team Corinthians, though police on Sunday ruled out linking the murders to a fight between the supporters of rival teams.

The murders occurred after 11 p.m. on Saturday in front of the Pavilhao Nove fan club's headquarters in the city of Sao Paulo, Spanish news agency Efe reported.

Police found seven bodies lying in the street in front of the fan club's headquarters.

Another man was found wounded at a nearby gas station and taken to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his bullet injuries, a Sao Paulo militarised police spokesman told Efe.

The eight victims were all fans of Corinthians, said the police, who still have no clues as to who committed the massacre, although a hypothesis that it was a settling of drug scores was being considered, given that two of the dead had records of drug trafficking.

The civil police official in charge of the case, Arlindo Jose Negrao Vaz, ruled out that the killings could be the result of a fight between groups of football hooligans.

According to Vaz, three men entered the fan club's headquarters, ordered the victims to the ground and killed them in the style of an execution. A number of 9 mm shell casings were found at the scene.

Police are analysing security camera footage from the nearby gas station, to which the mortally wounded man had fled, for clues that may help in solving the case.