Futebol

by Alex Bellos

  Dino Fernandes, a fifty-year-old deputy from Rio, used to play with Flamengo's junior team. He trained on a few occasions with Zico, who later became the club's greatest idol. When Dino was elected in 1998, his first project was a glorified version of what you do on your first day at secondary school. He compiled a survey and sent it to the other 512 deputies. The questionnaire asked: 'Which football team do you support?' Dino's aim was to prove that Flamengo was the most popular team in Congress.

  The survey took forty-five days to complete. Those who did not reply Dino telephoned or went to see personally. He had to be careful, since he knew that some people would say they liked Flamengo when really they were just being politically opportune. 'That happened,' he confirms. 'But I would put a little mark in pencil on their form and discount them from the totals.'

  Dino had estimated that there would be about a hundred parliamentary Flamengo fans, or 'Flamenguistas'. The result gave him a wonderful surprise. The club was supported by 157 deputies – or 30 per cent of the house – forming a bloc larger than any single party. Vasco limped home second with forty-four. After that came Fluminense, Corinthians and then Botafogo.

  In order to commemorate his findings, Dino asked for permission to hold a ceremony in the Chamber. Each of his colleagues who had shown a preference for Flamengo was invited to attend, where they were presented with a diploma, 'Deputy of the Ruby-and-Black Nation', in reference to the club's colours. Dino's eyes almost well up when he recalls the moment: 'It was on the fourteenth of September 2000 at 1400 hours. It was a beautiful party,' he remembers. Current and former presidents of Flamengo were present. 'It was unheard of, to pay respects to a football club in the House. People said it was one of the biggest celebrations there has ever been there. It was packed. People came from all over Brazil.'

  Flamengo paid tribute to Dino and rewarded him with the title of Vice-President of External Relations. He was given an office in the club's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, which is where I meet him. The room is small, but it has a privileged view over the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon. Dino is a gentle man whose floppy hair, centre parting and droopy moustache make him look like a character from Asterix.

  Congress is made up of seventeen political parties. With the exception of the left-wing Workers Party, which has an ideology, the parties are effectively just administrative machines. Dino was elected for the PSC. (Parties are known by their acronyms, which seems to reinforce the fact they do not stand for anything.) As soon as he arrived in Brasilia he switched to the PSDB. Now, he tells me, he is thinking of jumping ship a second time, to the PTB. 'It's a smaller party. I prefer to be the member of a party where you only need 40,000 votes to be elected. At the PSDB you need a lot more, maybe 70,000.'

  Since policies are not especially relevant for party membership, Brazilian politics is more about negotiating personal or corporate interests. It allows for deputies like Eurico, who is representing his personal interest. Eurico, in fact, is his interest.

  Dino had a serious motive behind his football questionnaire. With such a fairweather attitude to party loyalty, it was natural to look elsewhere to form political allegiances. He wanted to form a bond between the Ruby-and-Black deputies which he could use as a lobbying force. He tells me he has plans to propose serious legislation regarding the social responsibilities of football clubs. 'My political bloc [the PSDB] has about a hundred deputies. With one hundred and fifty more Flamengo deputies we have a lot more chance of passing laws,' he argues. He says that it worked. 'The ceremony was to butter them up. After they received the diplomas the vast majority supported my social project.' He intends to use the Ruby-and-Black caucus for other legislation too. 'Here you can change your party every day if you want to. But you could never change your club. It's a different type of passion.'

  The weakness and profusion of political parties is a symptom of the youth of Brazil's democracy. The country was in a military dictatorship from 1964 until 1985. After a transition period, Brazilians in 1989 elected their first leader in almost three decades. President Fernando Collor de Mello was only forty years old, a little-known politician from the tiny northeastern state of Alagoas. His youth, energy and good looks were the symbol of a new Brazil.

  Collor was also the first Brazilian president who started public life as the president of a football club. He is a strong example of the deep-rooted promiscuity between football and political power. Running a football club gives you good public visibility and, if the team is successful, lots of votes.

  In 1973 and 1974 Collor ran CSA, of the Alagoan capital Maceió. Collor, whose family runs the local television station, radio and newspaper, later became mayor and state governor. 'Being CSA president was decisive for his career,' says the Alagoan political scientist Eduardo Magalhães Junior. 'Collor was a man of the elite. CSA is a team whose supporters are exclusively lower middle or working class. It was fundamental to give him an affinity with the people.'

  Collor's presidential term was a disaster. He was unable to tame the economy and, as the press and Congress turned against him, his administration became fatally weakened by corruption scandals. He eventually resigned during impeachment proceedings. Brazil's young face of democracy had turned out to be the face of its corrupt, oligarchical past.

  CSA, however, continued to be used as a political launchpad. Its subsequent presidents include Collor's cousin Euclides and Augusto Farias, who have both been elected to Congress. In 1999, CSA's directors voted twenty-three-year-old Arnon de Mello into the club presidency. Arnon is Fernando Collor's son.

  In December 2000, I am in Maceió and I visit Arnon in his office. It is in the same building as the family newspaper. Arnon has his father's sporty good looks. He is tall and exudes a well-fed healthiness that is rarely seen in Alagoas. The state is one of Brazil's poorest. More than a third of the population are illiterate and the infant mortality rate is the highest in the country.

  Arnon is exactly the sort of person you want to dislike. Born into a provincial dynasty, he is a symbol of Brazil's grotesque inequalities. Between the ages of four and twenty-three he never lived in Maceió – he was brought up in Switzerland and then studied at the University of Chicago. Being president of CSA pays no money, and he can only afford to do it because he is given substantial hand-outs by the family firm.

  Yet I am won over by his charm. He is modest and genuinely excited about running a football club. I suggest he must be one of the youngest club presidents in Brazil. 'I am not just the youngest,' he stresses, 'I am the youngest by thirty years.'

  Arnon is already showing that he has his father's populist DNA. During the state championship he travels to every upstate game and often sits with the fans. 'If things go bad it's normal to have oranges and cans thrown at me, but if things go well I'm carried on people's shoulders and they call me the best president in Brazil.'

  At Chicago he graduated in economics. He says that he's trying to modernise the way clubs are run. 'People say that the only reason I wanted to be in CSA was because I want to be a politician. I think in the past there was a lot of this. I am trying to do something different. I want to leave a club that isn't in debt.'

  I ask him if he will enter politics. 'I think the probability is big. My great-grandfather was a politician. My grandfather was a politician. My father was a politician. And I like politics. So I think it's likely. But I'm not in a hurry.'

  In the 1970s and 1980s, CSA were in the first division of the national league. In 2000 they should be in the third. But a few weeks before the league is due to start Arnon calls up Eurico Miranda.

  'I asked him if he could help put CSA back in the second division,' says Arnon. He imitates Eurico's reply: 'You know how he speaks – "piss" here, "bollocks" there. I didn't know what would happen.'

  A few days later, the list of teams competing in division two was announced – including CSA.

  ***

  In the evening after I interview Eurico in his cabinet, Vasco beat the Argentinian side River
Plate 4-1 in the Mercosul Cup. The following morning, I watch how Eurico behaves in Congress. He keeps teasing the other deputies like a self-satisfied schoolboy, showing them four fingers in one hand and one in the other. He has another reason to be smug. After the match he called up the team in Buenos Aires and banned them from giving interviews. It was a way of getting at the press. On television I see images of Vasco's players, including Romario, arriving at the airport with their hands over their mouths.

  A few days later I go to São Januário. I watch a match sitting next to Fernando, Vasco's diligent and eternally worried-looking press officer. He explains to me that Eurico was retaliating for what he sees as censorship against him. 'Eurico believes he is the victim,' he says. 'He thinks that Flamengo gets more coverage. He thinks Vasco is treated with a certain disinterest.' He shows me a press release in which it states that José Carlos Araiijo, one of Brazil's most esteemed radio commentators, is banned from matches at São Januário.

  I suggest that Eurico must be an impossible boss. 'It's his way. He has a very strong temperament. You have to live with it.' But he adds that Eurico is very loyal to his friends and deeply religious. 'Wherever he is in the world with Vasco he has to go to church every Sunday. In Tokyo, Mexico and Australia, he made a point of finding a Catholic church.' Eurico does have a benevolent streak. He used to send retirement money voluntarily to Barbosa, the ex-Vasco goalkeeper who became a national pariah after the 1950 World Cup.

  The current incident is not the first time that Vasco has banned journalists from São Januário. It started in 1997, when a letter was sent out saying that the club would not be responsible for the physical security of journalists who had criticised it. In 1999 some reporters only entered São Januário with legal orders and accompanied by policemen. José Carlos Araiijo – whose picture is in the paper narrating a match watching it on television – claims to have been manhandled and had cups of urine thrown at him.

  I am not the only one who finds Eurico's censorship a petty and dangerous precedent. The issue spirals out of the sporting arena and reaches Rio's state assembly. Chico Alencar, president of the human rights committee, drafts a motion repudiating Eurico's 'restriction of the free movement of journalists'. The motion is signed by thirty-six state deputies, an absolute majority. However, scenes in the assembly deteriorate. One of the state deputies against the motion is Roberto Dinamite, who played for Vasco and the national team in the 1970s and 1980s. He manages to persuade political allies to remove their signatures.

  He tells them: 'The problem is that Chico Alencar is a Flamenguista.'

  Latin America has produced many demagogic leaders. A Brazilian version is the 'coroneP, or colonel, a local political chieftain – usually nothing to do with the military-who is constantly showing off his power. The coronel is probably a legacy from colonial slave-owners, who used swagger to reinforce segregation. Eurico is football's coronel. He is popular because many people identify with strong public figures. And also because under his command Vasco are successful. Since 1986, when he became vice-president in charge of football, the club has won six state championships, two Brazilian leagues, the South American Libertadores Cup and was runner-up in the World Club Championship.

  I do not need to wait long for a gobsmacking example of his authoritarianism. In the semi-final of the Brazilian championship, he sacks his coach, Oswaldo de Oliveira, in the changing room after the game. Eurico says it was the result of an argument about what time training should start the following Monday. 'It was simple. He disagreed with my decision and I sacked him,' says Eurico. 'It wasn't a heavy chat. At Vasco there's a hierarchy, orders exist to be respected. I can't see things escape from between my fingers.' Then Eurico reveals another motive. Once the final whistle had blown, Oswaldo and Cruzeiro's coach had given each other an amicable hug in a spontaneous public gesture of fair play. In Eurico's eyes, the fraternisation was unacceptable.

  In 2000 the Brazilian championhip is called the João Havelange Cup, in homage to the Brazilian who was president of FIFA for twenty-four years. Eurico's Vasco make the final, against São Caetano, a team from São Paulo. The title is to be decided over two legs. The first match, in São Paulo, is tied 1-1.

  On Saturday 30 December I drive to São Januário for the second leg. It is a glorious midsummer day. The sensation as I approach the stadium is of being a cyclist in the Tour de France. The streets are full of men waving at me, who only open a path for my car when I am almost running them over. This gesticulating army is a common Brazilian scourge: vigilante car park attendants. They find you a space, help you park it and, supposedly, guard it – for however much money they can con from you. It's a wily ruse for making money, and inevitable since São Januário does not have a proper car park – neither, for that matter, does the Maracanã.

  São Januário holds about 30,000. It is full to bursting point – entirely with Vasco fans. São Caetano had asked for their allocation but Vasco, in a typical show of bad faith, sold all their tickets to Vascainos. Vasco made a verbal agreement to give São Caetano their fair share, but the Rio club reneged.

  Instead of sitting in the press box I decide to watch the match from the terraces. The standing area stretches in a curved dog-leg along two sides of the pitch. I position myself behind the centre line. The crowd is crammed together. Vendors squeeze through selling plastic bottles of mineral water and ice lollies. We are in direct sunlight and many men have stripped off their shirts. It is about 40°C.

  Vasco are the favourites. As well as the home advantage they have a line-up that includes Romario and several other stars of the national side. São Caetano reached the final with a team of unknowns, including one player who had spent a year and five months in prison for involvement in a burglary.

  The match starts with festive celebrations. The crowd lights flares, waves flags and throws streams of toilet roll cascading in the air. The stadium is shaking with drumming, fireworks and the sound of happy chanting. The game kicks off. In the early minutes São Caetano have the run of play. There midfield is fluent and they create good chances. Only heroic goalkeeping by Vasco's Helton prevents the visitors opening score. After twenty-one minutes Romario is substituted, with a problem in his left thigh. The crowd starts to feel tense. Two minutes later the referee blows his whistle to halt the game. I do not understand why. Within a few seconds word comes through that there has been some problem with the fans. We look to our left. I am given a leg-up to see what has happened. About fifty metres away, at the corner of the stand, I see that the fencing in front of the terraces has twisted over. A mass of fans are piled up behind it.

  From my position, it is difficult to see how serious the accident is. Two ambulances drive on to the pitch. Then I hear the buzz of a helicopter. It gets louder and louder until the stadium is drowned in an unbearable noise. The helicopter slowly hovers and lands in the Vasco goal area. A man strapped to a stretcher is hurried on to the helicopter. He looks seriously hurt. I decide to try and get on to the pitch. I leave the terraces, find a side door, show a security man my press card and he lets me through.

  The scene is shocking. Much worse than I expected. The grass looks like a war zone. There are dozens of people lying on the ground. I see people on stretchers looking lifeless and others wincing in pain. I am shaken by the horror of what I see. I walk to the perimeter, where the fencing has caved in. By the time I arrive, everyone has been removed. But from seeing the number of people on the pitch and the number left on the terraces, I judge that several hundred people must have been involved in the crush. About fifteen metres of the fencing – made of metal bars with spikes – is lying over a metre-deep trench that divides the terraces from the pitch. I look at the bottom of the trench. It is filled with a heap of about fifty pairs of shoes, which fell off as fans scrambled to safety.

  I turn around and see Eurico. He is storming around the pitch, stepping between the injured and shouting at the medics. He shows absolute indifference to catastrophe: 'Nothing serious happe
ned. But something could if the game doesn't continue. I want these fucking ambulances out of here!'

  Eurico is surrounded by his heavies and a trail of journalists. He is wearing a blue shirt, with large sweat patches under his arms, on his shoulders and on his chest. He is spitting with rage. He shouts aggressively, pointing his finger in the air. He shows no respect for the injured or those at their aid. His only concern is in clearing the pitch so that the match can restart.

  The São Caetano president appears and is promptly surrounded. He says that it is common sense to cancel the game. Then the State Civil Defence Secretary, who is also present, gives the all-clear for the game to proceed. But the situation is completely out of control. The pitch contains two helicopters, about ten ambulances and hundreds of journalists, fans and medics. The Vasco and São Caetano players are sitting by the touchline protected by military police.

  It is a tragic, farcical impasse. The situation continues until the referee finally signals that the game really is over, about an hour after he halted it temporarily. He leads the players back into the changing rooms.

  The temperature is still almost 40°C.

  It emerges that the state governor, Anthony Garotinho, watching the events on television at home, had called up São Januário and ordered the end of the match.

  Eurico is livid. He starts a slanging match in front of the cameras. 'He's false and incompetent. It was this poof of a governor who called off the game. The bloke's a wimp.'

  A few minutes later the Vasco players unexpectedly reappear. They saunter out of the tunnel and head for the halfway line, where the João Havelange Cup is standing on a table. The players hoist up the trophy and, together with Eurico, complete a lap of honour. No one can quite believe the shamlessness or insensitivity, since they have most certainly not won anything. A bunch of young hardmen manhandle journalists out of the way. They shout Vasco's war cry and also: 'Eu-ri-co! Eu-ri-co! Eu-ri-co!'