Kaiser

by Rob Smyth

  The re-emergence of Kaiser came as a surprise to many of his old friends, who had lost touch with him. ‘He vanished for maybe five or six years,’ says Dror Niv. ‘He just disappeared. When he returned he was down and out. He didn’t have hot women, he had no car, he had nobody to pay his bills. It was a different story. In the first period he was kind of a gigolo. He would meet properly beautiful women from middle-class and upper-class families. They would drive him around and pay the bill. Then as time went by the girls were still pretty but they were from more modest neighbourhoods. And then came those really toned, muscular women who were old. Really old.’

  CHAPTER 30

  THE FITNESS TRAINER

  It was a Sunday night and Kaiser had invited his friend Leri Da Rosa to come out with him. He was planning to go to Nuth, a posh nightclub in Barra, where he was friends with the owner. ‘There’s women everywhere,’ said Kaiser. ‘You won’t have to worry about anything as it’s all on my tab and I know everybody there.’

  When they arrived, they found a queue that seemed to go on forever. Kaiser marched straight past the queue as usual and led Leri round the back of the club. He assumed they were heading to the VIP entrance. ‘Kaiser opened a door and walked through,’ says Da Rosa. ‘I followed him and the first thing I saw was a deep-fat fryer. We were in the kitchen! It was absolutely roasting in there. Once we finally got into the club I realised that he’d just snuck in like a rat. I was so embarrassed. I said to him “Fucking hell, Kaiser, I work. I can just go to the front and pay the entrance fee, I don’t need this shit!”’

  Kaiser – and his friends – were realising the hard way that old footballers don’t always get on the VIP list. Being a fitness trainer had nothing like the same glamour, even if Kaiser was genuinely good at it. He worked hard to publicise himself at every opportunity, and even pushed for the creation of new categories like ‘Wellness’ just so that his pupils could win competitions.

  He still found ways to get himself in the papers. It was headline news when, in April 2008, Romário’s Ferrari was written off after a crash in Icarai. He had lent the car to a friend while at a party. The next day, when Romário turned up to have his car towed, he found Kaiser waiting for him. Kaiser asked if he could do anything to help. An already exasperated Romário said no. It didn’t matter – the paparazzi had taken pictures of the two together, some of which appeared in the following day’s newspapers.

  ***

  Kaiser’s life took another turn in 2011, when Marco Tioco, who had been a press officer at Botafogo in the 1990s, suggested he sell his story. ‘I don’t think he realised how interesting his story was,’ says Tioco. ‘He was so deeply entrenched that he only started to understand what he was doing, and what he represented, after he’d stopped. He started to understand that he was a character in a funny story. The least I could do was help him with press connections.’

  It was time for Kaiser to tell the truth, the occasional truth and something resembling the truth. He was pitched as the Forrest Gump of football, and Tioco arranged an exclusive interview on Esporte Espetacular, a regular show on Globo TV. Kaiser walked around Rio telling his story to the presenter Renato Ribeiro. At the end Kaiser looked straight to camera, took off his sunglasses and did a bit of marketing: ‘Whoever needs a personal trainer, just look for me, Carlos Henrique Kaiser. I’m better than the football player – that’s a guarantee.’

  That was small beer compared to Kaiser’s next appearance a month later. The Jô Soares Show was the biggest chat show in South America, a Brazilian version of David Letterman that was often the most watched programme in Brazil.

  ‘Carlos Kaiser on Jô Soares? I don’t believe that,’ says Washington Rodrigues. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it. And even then I won’t believe it. That show is an institution in Brazilian TV. As well as being a cultured and intelligent person, Jo is a polymath because he’s a theatre director, a humourist and a wonderful interviewer.’

  Soares’s range of talents is such that he was once described as ‘the Renaissance man of Brazilian popular culture’. He would often interview guests in other languages and act as his own translator. All the greats of Brazilian football have been on the show: Pelé, Ronaldo, Neymar, Romário, Zico. And Carlos Kaiser.

  He blagged his way onto the show, offering to talk about his career as a fake footballer. But whenever Soares asked a question about football, Kaiser answered one about his current career. He was using the biggest talk show in the country to advertise his services as a fitness trainer.

  Before anyone had chance to say, ‘This isn’t quite what we envisaged when we invited you on’, Kaiser asked if he could call one of his students from the crowd to sit next to him because ‘she makes me feel more comfortable on TV’.

  Soon she was the star of the show, performing a demonstration of her physique – and therefore Kaiser’s teaching – that bore more than a little resemblance to an old-fashioned striptease. Within seconds she was strutting round the stage wearing only a sports bikini and high heels.

  Inevitably, it was a set-up. She wasn’t a student of Kaiser’s at all, just a beautiful and buff woman called Fabiola who he had approached in the street with the chance of a lifetime. Fabiola was the talk of The Jô Soares Show, and over the next few weeks Kaiser had hundreds of new applications.

  ***

  Having spent a few years in the doldrums, Kaiser had a taste for fame again. In December 2011, the hulking striker Adriano, whose career and life had gone downhill since a successful spell in Italy with Internazionale, was involved in a notorious incident in Barra. He was reported to have accidentally shot a woman in the hand when they were in his car, though a few days later she said she pulled the trigger.

  Another woman, who was also in the car at the time, was widely photographed when she arrived at the police station the following day. Kaiser found out she was a bodybuilder named Andrea Ximenez – and that she was the cousin of the sushi chef who worked at Dror Niv’s I Piatti restaurant. ‘He moved heaven and earth until he got her number,’ says Niv. Kaiser, who had been developing a nice sideline in selling supplements for bodybuilders, soon became Ximenez’s boyfriend and her personal trainer.

  Soon after, Kaiser booked a table at I Piatti for him, his new love and a few close friends. At the end, he got down on one knee and proposed. She accepted and everybody went home high on the joys of love. Except the happy couple: Niv saw them part ways about fifty yards from the restaurant. ‘She got in one taxi and he got in another,’ he says. ‘It was a scam. It was all for some supplement sponsor.’

  ***

  In 2012, Kaiser was less than impressed to see that one of his students, a transsexual named Paloma, had told a newspaper they were dating. The article was accompanied by a picture of Kaiser and Paloma leaning in for a smooch. ‘She was a funk dancer,’ he says. ‘She was only performing once a month before saying she was involved with me. Then she suddenly started doing ten shows a week. Profiting from the fact she’d been with a footballer. If the shoe was on the other foot I’d have said nothing. But people often use footballers. What can you do?”

  If there’s one thing Kaiser hates, it’s hangers-on.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE FANTASY FOOTBALLER

  Kaiser’s spell at Ajaccio defined his career. It gave him stories – ‘when the pitch is flooded I shoot from behind the goal’ – that were lapped up in dressing rooms, while the status of being somebody who played in France helped open doors all over Rio.

  And none of it actually happened.

  That, at least, is the truth according to Fabinho, the attacker who was supposed to have brought Kaiser to the club in 1987. He says Kaiser has never set foot in Corsica, never mind been on the books of Ajaccio; that Kaiser borrowed memorabilia and manipulated it to make himself seem like an exotic, foreign-based footballer. Or, to put it another way, that he stole Fabinho’s identity.

  ‘It helped him that Ajaccio was so far away because it was impossible for people to research
a second division team in France,’ he says. ‘I gave him shirts from Ajaccio and other clubs in the French league.’

  He also gave him a blank Ajaccio ID card, which became Kaiser’s most cherished possession. ‘He said to me, “This is the best Christmas present I’ll ever receive!”’ Kaiser borrowed Fabinho’s card and produced a perfect replica, even down to the club emblem. ‘I can’t believe he could get the card exactly the same. The stamp was perfect.’

  Kaiser’s Ajaccio ID became a universal key card. He had it laminated and used it to get in everywhere from restaurants and nightclubs – ‘I’m on holiday in Rio, I just want to have a look around’ – to the Maracanã. It also ensured free rooms, free meals and other gratuities. ‘That card was a status symbol for him,’ says Fabinho. ‘It was like an official document which even helped him get onto loads of TV shows. This created the idea that Kaiser was in France, Argentina, Mexico and many other places, when the only time he left Rio was to go to El Paso.’

  It gives a whole new meaning to fantasy football.

  ***

  Alexandre Couto, who also played for Ajaccio, originally said he was there with Kaiser. When he was interviewed a second time, having spoken to Fabinho, he told a different story. ‘Kaiser never played for Ajaccio,’ he says. ‘I love Kaiser to bits and we’ve always done everything to indulge his fantasy, because these football stories are his daily bread. But lying on behalf of him has become uncomfortable. When Fabinho told me he had spoken the truth I decided to do the same. I really love Kaiser, but I have to be fair.’

  Like Fabinho, Alexandre gave Kaiser lots of Ajaccio paraphernalia; everything from pristine match shirts to rosettes. ‘I don’t have any Ajaccio memorabilia left,’ he says. ‘It’s all in Kaiser’s house!’

  Just as crucially, they gave him an encyclopaedia’s worth of detail about the experience of being an Ajaccio player. Kaiser asked about everything, from the weather to the fashion to the name of the club captain to whether they had love motels.

  ‘He would ask me what life was like in Corsica, what the diet was like,’ says Fabinho. ‘He made up all that stuff about the nights out and Mancini having mafia connections. None of that is true. He created a film for himself.’

  The story was told in a hodgepodge of Portuguese and French. ‘He learned a few French phrases from me: “Comme ci, comme ça”, “Parlez-vous français”, “Je t’aime”. That was the phrase he’d use with the ladies. If you had a conversation with him, I doubt he’d be able to put a full sentence together.’

  ***

  There is a collection of pictures, taken in the late 1980s, of Kaiser at the Ajaccio training ground. They were used in various newspaper profiles and features throughout Kaiser’s career. The camera may never lie, but sometimes the caption does. ‘That’s actually Clube dos Macacos in south Rio,’ says Fabinho. ‘It’s an exclusive sports club so only a few people would recognise that the photos were taken there. He must have asked the person taking the photo not to include the whole pitch, just a small part.’

  A visit to Clube dos Macacos with Fabinho confirmed the similarities between Kaiser’s photos, taken thirty years ago, and the club today. The backdrop of palm trees is identical.

  Fabinho also recognised Kaiser’s attire. ‘That’s a training top that I’d brought from Ajaccio,’ he says, looking at one picture. Another has Kaiser in full match kit. ‘This is the Ajaccio match shirt from the 1986–7 season. It was as if I’d brought him a piece of treasure. This stuff was pure gold for him because with that he could turn himself into a professional player. Somebody who’s not very familiar with football might think he was playing there. But it looks kind of weird because at training you usually have loads of players around. And you would never wear the match shirt during training.’

  Another picture has Kaiser with his right hand in the air, his index finger pointing impatiently. ‘Man, there’s one that is really funny,’ says Fabinho. ‘Him calling for the ball. “Pass the fucking ball!” He had all the little tricks and mannerisms of a professional player. He liked to crouch down and look around like a player. He would pull his shorts up a bit to show off his legs. The shorts were really tight in the eighties. It was really suggestive and that was his intention. He took the photos exactly so women could see that he was really playing for a French team.

  ‘If he was studying for a degree, he would have nailed the theory side of being a footballer. He would even kick with the outside of the foot because that’s how all the classy players did it. But anybody in the industry would quickly notice that it was fake.’

  When Kaiser originally showed Alexandre the photos, the response did not go down well.

  ‘Oh great, that’s in Clube dos Macacos.’

  ‘You’re a dick.’

  ‘Kaiser, do you want to teach me about where all the pitches are in Rio?’

  The irritation soon passed, especially as Kaiser had what he wanted. To all intents and purposes he was an Ajaccio player, which increased his profile tenfold. ‘Listen, I can guarantee you that he benefited a lot more than I did from having played in Corsica, because I didn’t get onto the programmes he did in Rio or go to the places he went,’ says Fabinho. ‘He went on Mesa Redonda. And he gave one of the most famous commentators in Brazil an Ajaccio shirt as a present.’

  Being at Ajaccio also gave him an exotic CV when he wanted to approach a new club or a new woman. ‘He would tell all sorts of stories,’ says Fabinho. ‘You have Ali Baba and 1001 Nights. This was Kaiser and 1001 Nights. He told every kind of story imaginable, which the ladies would believe, about his goalscoring and nights out in Corsica. Football was a bridge for him to get everything that he wanted: status and women.’

  Kaiser had one last obstacle to overcome if his story was going to work. Why, if he was an Ajaccio player, was he in Rio all the time? That’s where the disciplinary measures, for his excessive socialising, and the interminable contract impasse that was mentioned in many newspaper articles – ‘I will sell the whole squad but not Charles’ – came in. Kaiser sold himself as a misunderstood bad boy, a rogue with a heart of gold.

  ***

  There is no resentment from Fabinho that Kaiser stole his story. ‘I saw him as completely harmless, so I let him live his fantasy,’ he says. ‘It was his dream and we encouraged it. We found it so funny. I’m still really fond of him and still speak to him. It doesn’t make me angry. He was never a bad person.’

  Fabinho was happy to go along with Kaiser’s story while it was contained within Rio, but the thought of it spreading to Corsica did not sit comfortably. ‘If he wants to keep living his dream, it’ll be in his own head. There comes a time when people have to tell the truth. They’re really fond of me there and I can’t keep telling a huge lie that will find its way back to Europe. In 2011 I was even invited to be the honorary footvolley captain over in Ajaccio. From now on I would rather tell the complete truth. I have my own reputation in a place where I lived and worked for five years, and I can’t use my name to promote Carlos Kaiser’s lie all around the world. I told him that. He got really pissed off and didn’t call me for ages.’

  CHAPTER 32

  THE MAN THEY LEFT BEHIND

  Kaiser sits on a pouf in the dimly lit lounge of a modest apartment, jiggling his right knee. His head is angled towards the floor. He is wearing a faded T-shirt, denim shorts, garish red trainers and sunglasses. Behind him is a collage of flyers for takeaways, taxis and gyms. Kaiser is fifty-three years old and this is his life.

  It is a few minutes since he heard that Fabinho has spoken about their time at Ajaccio. He does not know Alexandre Couto has also corroborated the story. ‘If Fabinho didn’t want to talk about it, he should just have said so,’ says Kaiser. ‘He won’t confirm it but there are people who have confirmed it. Alexandre Couto tells the truth. Whatever he says about me, good or bad, it’s true. He’s genuine and not two-faced like the other Brazilian. Maybe it’s because I got special treatment over there. It’s difficult. You can’t under
stand human beings.’

  The last few years have not been kind to Kaiser. He has very poor eyesight and a chronic hip problem. When he hears about Fabinho, he has just come out of hospital after being admitted for acid reflux. Many of his peers have died, and the regrets he was able to suppress for so long have muscled their way to the surface. On this day, it is all too much.

  He had problems with his eyesight in the early 2000s, when he could not recognise Ivete Sangalo. Things really started to deteriorate in 2013: the week after winning his first trophy as a wellness coach, Kaiser woke up unable to see properly. He has walked straight past a number of his friends, not seeing them in front of him or hearing their hellos amid the chatter of the Rio streets. When he looks at his phone, he holds it barely two inches from his face.

  He has had surgery on a swollen cornea in his left eye and also his hip, which is so bad that he walks with a permanent limp. It’s a cruel twist that, after so long faking injury, he really does have the body of an old footballer.

  Kaiser and many of his friends have noticed that his health started to deteriorate soon after that black magic spell was placed on him in 2001. The journalist Martha Esteves thinks he has má-fé, or bad karma. Some of his friends also think he is diabetic. Kaiser is too proud to take the necessary tests to find out.

  Most of his medical bills are paid without fanfare by Renato Gaúcho. ‘Renato is my father, my friend, my brother, my everything,’ says Kaiser. ‘I would sacrifice my life for him. I called on the day I lost my eyesight and he interrupted a team talk as Grêmio manager. Usually a guy would get annoyed at that. He was in the middle of his job. He said in the kindest way possible, “Hang in there. When the game finishes, I’ll call you.” And he did. What can I say about a guy like that? Human beings like that don’t exist.’