A VITÓRIA DOS MEDÍOCRES: A TRÁGICA SITUAÇÃO DO FUTEBOL BRASILEIRO

In August 2005 , Terra website published an article [1] on the 10 years of the Pacaembu tragedy, on 08/20/1995, involving Sao Paulo and Palmeiras’ fans, which had 101 wounded and one dead. As we approach the 20th anniversary of this shameful event, we still read headlines like “Football fan beaten to death with iron bars by rival supporters” [2] and “Corinthians fans invade training ground” [3] . This week, three participants of this invasion, which occurred last February, were released on the grounds that “they asked for players to honor the wages they earn, showing the truly Brazilian football” [4] . I invite the reader to reflect on what would the Judiciary’s reaction be if the population invaded every institution whose members they think not to honor their wages.

Photo: Bol Fotos

We treat soccer with certain privileges that tie a desirable shift towards professionalism. The recipe for our shameful inability to change the landscape of Brazilian soccer has four main components: 1) impunity; 2) population’s conformism and passivity; 3) clubs’managers’ incompetence; 4) concentration of Brazil’s TV market. The first two transcend soccer, they are chronic problems in brazilian society , which I does not want to address here. The other two, however, form a harmful relation to brazilian soccer, making impossible even to think about approaching the American sports business standard.

In his article Oligopólio na comunicação: um Brasil de poucos, Vilson Vieira Jr addressed among other things, a survey that showed that “Globo still holds 33.4 % of total vehicles linked to national private TV networks and controls the largest number of vehicles in all types of media: 61.5 % UHF TVs , 40.7 % of newspapers, 31.8 % of VHF televisions; 30.1% of AM radio stations and 28% of FM”. [5]

The incompetence of the managers leads to weakening of the clubs’ financial status, leaving them increasingly “tied” to the country’s biggest media conglomerate (Globo) due to the advance on the broadcast rights’ payments. It is not difficult to understand the relationship between the recent headlines below, arranged in chronological order:

1) Globo advance R$ 40 million to Corinthians [6]

2) Corinthians fans invade training ground [3]

3) Corinthians players consider a boycott of Sunday’s game after fans invade their training ground [7]

4) “Timão” players decide to play aganst Ponte [8]

What is the probability of a club to refuse to play to try and change the ridiculous situation of Brazilian soccer, if this same club had received millions of reais from the media conglomerate interested in the realization of the championship? Unfortunate? Yes! Tragic? Also. Difficult to understand? No, not at all.

A dead supporter, a training center invasion, a post championship changing in rules to benefit one club over another weaker one, any of these facts should, by itself, stop a championship until a major reform was implemented, but nothing changed and the players themselves perfectly explained why in a note about the event [9]: these were “regrettable incidents”, it’s “not the first, but it should be the last time that outlaws linked to organized supporters invade private property” but did not express their disapproval towards the event “because of contractual risks with club sponsors, as well as with the Sao Paulo State Soccer Federation and Globo (the leader, by far, of brazilian communications)”.

All of this resulted in a major defeat for Brazilian soccer, the transfer of the player and leader Paulo André from Corinthians to the chinese soccer [10]. Players’ disunity and people’s alienation led to the departure of the most important brazilian player, politically speaking, since Socrates and his Democracy [11], everything to keep the system, profits and mediocrity.

Igor Cruz

19/03/2014