Brazil, very affected by the pandemic, stopped its championships in mid-March. But President Jair Bolsonaro calls for a recovery, which is far from unanimous.
“As footballers are young and athletic, the risk of death if they catch the virus is infinitely reduced,” the head of state recently said in an interview with Radio Guaiba, a local office in the south of the country.
In March, the far-right president had already said that he would only feel a “small cold” if he was infected, thanks to his “athletic past”.
“It is not surprising to see Bolsonaro defend the recovery. He has been constantly advocating deconfinement from the start, why would it be different with football?” Explains Mauro Cézar Pereira, commentator on the ESPN Brasil channel, to AFP. .
For the president, “unemployment knocks on the door of the clubs” and “the players must survive”. He recalls that in Brazil, if a minority earns fortunes, most professional players, living on precarious and poorly paid contracts, “must play to feed their families”.
This anti-containment speech, in the name of preserving the economy and the permanent minimization of a pandemic whose death toll in Brazil continues to increase, made jump Rai, sports director of Sao Paulo FC and former idol of Paris SG. The ex-international did not hesitate to call for the resignation of Bolsonaro in an interview with the site Globoesporte.com.
“Irresponsible and genocidal”
But as the Brazilian president himself recognized, unlike France, where the government has ordered the authorities to definitively interrupt the season, the decision of a possible resumption is not up to him.
It must be validated by the States and municipalities responsible for containment measures, and by the local federations.
When the competitions were suspended in mid-March, the regional championships were underway. The national championship was scheduled to start in early May, but no new date has been set.
That did not prevent Bolsonaro from receiving on May 19 in Brasilia the presidents of Vasco and Flamengo, two of the four big clubs of Rio, also anxious to see football resume as soon as possible.
The photos of the leaders alongside the president wearing a Flamengo jersey and his son Flavio in Vasco’s tunic provoked an avalanche of criticism from supporters on social networks.
“The club associated its image with an irresponsible and genocidal president, singled out by the international scientific community as the greatest threat in the fight against the pandemic in the world,” denounced the group of supporters Flamengo da Gente on Twitter.
Rodolfo Landim, president of Flamengo, reigning national and continental champion, responded by castigating “the political intolerance” of certain supporters, ensuring that he only sought to “defend the interests of the club”.
The day after this controversial encounter, images filmed by helicopter by TV Globo showed that his team had defied the municipal ban in force in Rio de Janeiro and had resumed training on the ground without authorization.
Ana Beatriz Bush, Rio’s health secretary, lamented that the most popular club in Brazil is setting the wrong example. “Imagine all the young people who see Flamengo training. They will want to leave their home, when it is not possible”.
Controversial recovery
The mayor of Rio, Marcelo Crivella, ended up authorizing the resumption of training in June, even considering matches behind closed doors in July.
To the dismay of Fluminense and Botafogo, the two other big clubs in Rio, who consider this recovery premature.
“This precipitation reflects the concerns of many over-indebted clubs, which depend on television rights. The resumption of the Bundesliga has intensified this feeling. But unlike Germany, the contamination curve is still in full rise in Brazil”, underlines Mauro Cézar Pereira.
In some less affected states, such as Rio Grande do Sul (south) or Minas Gerais (south-east), the resumption of training has already been authorized for several weeks, allowing major clubs like Internacional, Gremio or Atlético Mineiro to find the ground.
A resumption marred by a lively controversy: the president of the International did not hesitate to affirm that any player refusing to train could “present his resignation”.
