At 41 years old and close to completing 1,000 games for cruise, fabio became the first symbol of an inevitable change caused by the Football Corporations in Brazil: the exchange of the passionate look of the amateur manager for the pragmatism of investors. The goalkeeper, with a contract until December 2022, announced his departure from the club after 17 years and 976 matches.
“SAF Cruzeiro wants to end my career immediately, even though I am in full physical and technical condition to continue playing at a high level and helping Cruzeiro. Only God can determine our time,” said the athlete in a statement on social media.
The change of plan took place after Ronaldo signaled with the purchase of SAF da Raposa. The group that will take over football informed the player that it wanted to reduce the contract and end it in March, after Mineiro. Fabio did not accept.
The message from Cruzeiro’s new managers became clear when the club, when announcing the squad for 2022 on social media, left the player out, even with the issue still being discussed.
Fábio stated that he suggested reducing his salary to the established ceiling, which was not accepted by the SAF.
Change of posture
Such hardness perhaps did not come from a leader moved by passion: even with the glaring scarcity of resources and the failure in B series from 2021, Sérgio Rodrigues signed the renewal of the goalkeeper last November, with the transformation of football from Raposa into SAF already well underway.
The way in which Cruzeiro’s new managers dealt with the case also reinforces a path that is natural once investors take up football: the search for the rejuvenation of the squad, enhancing, by table, players who can yield future transfers. And in this the older ones, with no sales potential, are discarded.
John Textor, American billionaire who came to the fore after signaling a desire to buy SAF from Botafogo, tried to dismiss the veterans of the Crystal Palace, an English club he has managed since the end of the last European season. Seven over 30, all at the end of their contract, were released to look for other clubs. Including Gary Cahill, 35, consecrated in his career.
“It is necessary to call those who are not productive and explain that a new story is being written,” he said. Marco Aurelius Cunha, former director of São Paulo e CBF.
The pragmatism that is imagined in the SAF should fully affect a practice that is still common in some Brazilian clubs: the hiring of former players, usually idols, for positions in the football department, in which it is not clear whether it was for attributes of the gift or gratitude. by the past. History doesn’t erase itself, but it doesn’t pay the bills either.
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