In 2014, while Brazil’s players struggled on the field, owners were just as often removing their feet from their mouths. The rich men who run Brazilian football tend to be outright disasters, offending everyone and running their clubs like private fiefdoms. In the video above, Confederation President Jose Maria Marin pockets and steals a medal from a player.
By James Young
2014 was not a good year for Brazilian football. First the country’s World Cup dreams went up in smoke in spectacular style against Germany, and then the Brasileirão national championship, won at a canter by Cruzeiro for the second year in a row, failed to provide much excitement.
But hope is finally at hand for disillusioned fans. After planning and organisation that would put the country’s lethargic football association, the CBF, to shame, the “From Brazil” blog is proud to present Brazil’s newest football tournament: the Futebol Morality League.
And what tremendous drama the first edition provided in 2014. While the quality of football on offer in the Brasileirão is usually a pale imitation of that served up in the top European leagues, the Futebol Morality League has shown that Brazilian club directors and presidents can still put the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich to shame – at least when it comes to the (almost) lost art of behaving appallingly.
Led by president Carlos Miguel Aidar, São Paulo got the season off to a cracking start. In April Aidar said he would love to sign former Milan and Seleção idol Kaká, who had started his career with his club. It was not hard to see why – Kaká could still be a dominant force on the field, and his experience would help the team’s younger players. But Aidar had other reasons in mind. Kaká was a São Paulo type of player, he argued, because he “he can read and write, he’s got all his teeth, he’s good looking, and he speaks well.”
An innocuous enough comment in some circles, perhaps, except that “analfabeto” (illiterate) and “sem dentes” (toothless) are often not just comments on someone’s dental condition or scholastic level, but words used to scornfully refer to Brazil’s poor. There is not much doubt that Aidar’s intention was to poke supposed fun at rivals Corinthians, traditionally a more working class club than São Paulo, but in the process he managed to potentially insult millions of less well-off Brazilians.
“He’s prejudiced…he offended the entire Zona Leste (São Paulo’s grittier east side)…he’s a racist,” spat former Corinthians chairman Andres Sanchez (no shy, shrinking violet himself) afterwards. At least Aidar recognised his mistake – a few days later he claimed he had been joking, adding that São Paulo was quite happy to sign “ugly, toothless” players if they played well.
Up in Minas Gerais, eager to match the success of its trophy-winning players with a title off the pitch too, Cruzeiro were soon challenging São Paulo at the top of the Morality League, with director of football Alexandre Mattos emerging as the club’s star player. After losing to arch-rivals Atlético-MG in the Campeonato Mineiro, Mattos had a few choice words for referee’s assistant Fernanda Colombo, who made a number of mistakes in the game. “They’re trying to promote her because she’s pretty,” he snarled. “Well if she’s pretty she should go and pose for Playboy, and not work in football.” Unsurprisingly, Mattos’ talents did not go unnoticed for long – he was recently snapped up by Palmeiras.
Mattos is still wet behind the ears, however, compared to some of the Morality League’s big dogs, especially Atlético Mineiro president Alexandre Kalil, who sadly extracted his foot from his mouth on a permanent basis this year and left the club. Kalil went out with a bang, though, whether by not paying his players (not an uncommon experience – in October a story reported that nine out of the 20 Serie A teams had owed their players money at some stage in 2014), racking up the club’s massive tax debts in a bid to win trophies, or trying to goad Cruzeiro. “I clapped until my hands were red when Veron took the stage,” he growled at an event in December, a reference to the Argentinian midfielder who destroyed Atletico’s neighbours in the 2009 Copa Libertadores final.
In fact, in 2014 the Atlético-Cruzeiro rivalry was arguably bitterer in the boardroom than it was on the pitch. When the two teams met in the Copa do Brasil final, Kalil said that Atlético would be taking up its 10% ticket allocation for the second leg at Cruzeiro’s home stadium, the Mineirão – despite Cruzeiro claiming that both clubs had previously agreed that away supporters would not be permitted at Belo Horizonte clássicos after serious crowd trouble at a league game in September. “I never promised anything,” snarled Kalil. “He (Cruzeiro chairman Gilvan Tavares) is a liar, and out of control.” Cruzeiro said they had Kalil’s promise on tape – making one wonder just what goes on at meetings between Brazilian soccer clubs.
At the same time, Kalil claimed that safety reasons meant he couldn’t give Cruzeiro its corresponding 10% allocation for the first leg at Atlético’s home ground. Cruzeiro rejected Galo’s offer of fewer tickets and the first game was played in front of home fans only. Not to be outdone, Cruzeiro chairman Tavares tried to take his revenge by charging visiting supporters R$1000 to watch the second leg – five and a half weeks work for a minimum salary employee in Brazil. It eventually took a court decision (which described the prices as “abusive”) to put a stop to the madness.
In the end though neither Atlético nor Cruzeiro did quite enough to win this year’s morality league, though Kalil and Tavares may be due a special award for their pettiness in a city where the rivalry between fans has grown increasingly intense in recent years – a Cruzeiro fan was beaten to death by members of the Atlético torcida organizada Galoucura in 2010.
São Paulo also missed out, despite a brave late fight back by Aidar, who at a government meeting to discuss restructuring the massive tax debts of financially irresponsible Brazilian clubs argued that football deserved tax breaks “like Santa Casa [an underfunded public hospital network] and ProUni [a government organisation that pays university grants to students from Brazil’s hard-up public schools] get.”
Instead, the winners of the first Futebol Morality League are the mighty Grêmio from Porto Alegre. It is hard to decide which was worse – the racist abuse of Santos goalkeeper Aranha by some of the club’s fans in August, or the reaction of a number of present and former Grêmio directors that followed it.
“Do you want to know why the incident wasn’t in the referee’s report? Because it didn’t happen. It was just Aranha making a scene,” said one director, Adalberto Preis. “Raping four children in a bathroom would cause less of a scandal than what’s happened to this girl (Patricia Moreira, one of the fans caught on TV shouting “monkey”),” said another, Nestor Hein.
Pride of place, however, goes to former president Luiz Carlos Silveira Martins. “Why don’t we investigate Aranha’s past to see what’s there. This little saint, this poor baby that he is … Aranha didn’t let the game flow. He interrupted the game the whole time. Then he hears a little shout, poor thing … and he goes and puts on this theater show.”
Grêmio could even call on a former World Cup winner to help their title bid. “Let’s hope those journalists don’t fall for his (Aranha’s) stunts again,” the club’s manager Luiz Felipe Scolari was overheard saying before the two teams met again in September.
So parabéns to Grêmio, worthy winners of the inaugural Morality League. Next year’s contest promises to be even more hotly disputed, especially now that the legendary Eurico Miranda is back as Vasco da Gama president. “I want these f**king ambulances out of here” roared Miranda during a crowd crush in 2001 that left 170 people injured. There are even that rumors that next year’s trophy will be presented by CBF president Jose Maria Marin – famed snaffler of medals, supporter of Brazil’s right wing military dictatorship in the 1960s and 70s, and described by legendary former striker Romario as everything from “a rat” to “a bandit”.
After the video of pocketing the medal went viral, Marin said it had been gifted to him as “courtesy” by the São Paulo Football Federation.
In the meantime, the thrills and spills of the 2014 Morality League will provide much comfort for weary local fans. The national team may be in a shoddy state these days, but Brazilian soccer still rules the world in one area – that of directors and chairman behaving badly.
