The Beautiful Game? Race and Class in Brazilian Soccer
Daflon, Rogério & Ballvé, Teo
Soccer has become so rooted in Brazil that it's hard to believe that when the ball first rolled upon the fields of the country only a small elite played the game. By the start of the 20th century,...
...1 It is these pervasive nuances of Brazilian racism that continue to this day...
...But unlike the large Brazilian corporations and the university system, which are overwhelmingly white, soccer teams and their organizations are symbols of genuine diversity and hybrid identities...
...The transformation of soccer from an opulent diversion for society's upper crust to eventually becoming a nationwide passion of t mammoth proportions was a process fraught with the t complex and charged components of race and class in Brazilian society...
...9. Survey cited in "Brazilian Football Fans," Zona Latina, <http://www.zon alatina.com/Zldata283.htm...
...Indeed, one I cannot ignore that plant managers were trying to cozy I up to their workers with the creation of soccer teams to I gain worker loyalty and to undermine their solidarity...
...A typical banner in the stands at games describes the team as "My best inheritance...
...6 Divisions of race and class in Rio are arguably the most pronounced of any large Brazilian city, so it's not surprising that Fla-Flu takes on overtly classist and racist dimensions...
...Many other clubs fol- lowed the Bangu model and teams with working-class associations began to spread...
...ity of making everyone the same...
...8 But no rivalry in Brazilian soccer approaches the epic status of the century-old carioca rivalry between Flamengo and Fluminense, modestly referred to as FlaFlu...
...Besides playing on socio-economic disparities, the rivalry is also marked by racial overtones...
...1. Luiz Costa-Lima, "Inter-Relations: Brazilian Soccer and Society," Stanford Electronic Humanities Review, Vol...
...What later became of soccer leads most Brazilians to believe the game was born from the masses...
...If in the early days of the game, Brazil's upperclass whites abhorred the presence of blacks on the few ;occer fields that existed, then that attitude multiplied :oncomitantly with the spread of the game...
...Confederation (CBF) in 1997 shows that very few playIn Rio de Janeiro's 1923 Amateur State ers actually improve their living standards...
...24 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24REPORT ON SPORT AND SOCIETY Sociologist Leonardo Alfonso de Miranda Pereira observed in his book Soccermania: A Social History of Soccer in Rio de Janeiro that the inclusion of Le6nidas on the 1934 national team was an event that reflected apparent changes in the way Brazilians perceived the ethnic hybridity of their country...
...7. From <http.//www.futebolthebrazilianwayoflife.com/clubs.html...
...A more probable reason for the other their soccer careers end...
...Although that professionalization would challenge the upper-class, this had a more dramatic effect on Uruguayan and white hegemony in the sport, because working-class and Argentine clubs whose players were mostly descended black players would be able to focus on playing the game from the countries actively recruiting players-namely, instead of trying to find or hold down a traditional job...
...Translated from Portuguese by Elisa Betancor Etcheverry and NACLA...
...Cruzeiro do Sul battles Atl6tico Mineiro in Belo Horizonte, Gr8mio rivals Internacional in Porto Alegre and Sdo Paulo is contested by four teams: Corinthians, Palmeiras, Santos and Sdo Paulo...
...3 Plant managers saw in soccer an easy and relatively inexpensive way to keep their work- t ers content...
...Soccer in Brazil was thus born arrogant and haughty, a symbol of extreme exclusion...
...The domestic production of soccer equipment received a major boost during World War I when Brazil c had to limit imports...
...Flamengo is considered the team of the masses-not surprising with a torcida of 26 million-and Fluminense is widely regarded as Brazil's most aristocratic team...
...Racist attitudes and policies were not limited to carioca clubs...
...Throughout the history of soccer in Brazil, societal tensions of race and class were reflected and played out in nearly every aspect of soccer...
...Rogbrio Daflon is a sports correspondent for 0 Globo, a major daily newspaper of Brazil...
...5. Luiz Costa-Lima, "Inter-Relations: Brazilian Soccer and Society...
...As celebrated sports journalist Jolo Saldanha s notes in his book The Soccer Subterraneans, I "Industrial development changed [the game's] character...
...Nor does any other rivalry divide quite as rigidly along class lines...
...2 It is important to remember that slavery in Brazil was only abolished in 1888, so t with increasing industrialization came the convergence I of former slaves and their direct descendants with workers in urban areas-no doubt seen as a volatile combination by elites...
...Soccer demonstrates that racism and socio-economic injustice in Brazil are far too historically entrenched and intertwined to be parsed neatly as independent social phenomenons...
...During the war years, industrial production increased by 8.5%, and in the 1920s and ( 1930s--despite the 1929 world economic crisisnational industry in Brazil became firmly established...
...In an interview, Le6nidas' wife once remarked, "Being black, Lefnidas believed he always had to do more to have his worth recognized...
...By the start of the 20th century, as the English mingled with the upper rungs of Brazilian "high society" in the states of Sio Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, they began teaching the basics of the sport to the most aristocratic of Brazilians...
...5 Such arrange- had no chance of upward mobility, but those who ments were often targeted by other teams as unfair and achieved significant financial success were a minority illegal under the amateur spirit of Brazilian soccer up to and still are...
...s The Bangu Athletic Club founded in 1904 by the British directors of a textile company was the first club to admit working-class players, not coincidentally Social divisions continue to defir Brazilians' intense relationship w their soccer teams...
...Saldanha describes how it was not until soccer balls began to be mass-produced that the sport really I enticed popular tastes...
...Although admission to these clubs was based largely on socio-economic standing rather than race, de facto segregation was conveniently imposed-as it was, and is, in much of Brazilian society-by socio-economic status...
...One story accounting for the nickname is that a mulatto player tried to disguise his skin tone with rice powder to avoid persecution by the team's fans in the early days of the game, while others claim the name alludes to the white powder once used to whiten the faces of the aristocracy...
...those who do, Championship, for example, Rio's more aristocratic become elites within their own class...
...The crowd cheers on their team at a Flamengo-Fluminense soccer game in Rio de Although Miranda Periera notes that Janeiro, the city's most heated rivalry by the end of the 1930s a majority of Brazilians could When the battle for the professionalization of soccer accept a racially integrated team and even be proud of it, was finally won in 1933, working-class players who preformer manual laborers like Le6nidas still found them- viously had to hold down a "real job" to sustain themselves going from club to club in search of a better life...
...At the time, this new perception was encouraged by the publishing of Gilberto Freyre's The Masters and the Slaves, a landmark, albeit now controversial 1933 book on Brazilian race relations that celebrated the miscegenation of colonial times as a root catalyst for racial harmony...
...4 The arger clubs of Fluminense, Botafogo and Flamengo )nly permitted white players on their teams...
...in reference to the supposed slum-dwelling fans of Flamengo who are also referred to as "FLAvelados" by opposing fans...
...And as the common saying goes, "In life, you can change your wife, but you can't change your mother or your soccer team...
...2, No...
...class players already provided them with some "bene- Professionalization allowed soccer to become a means fits"-transportation, monetary bonuses and even fake of social and financial ascension for players who before jobs to keep them on their team roster...
...The first time a black nan was asked to represent his country in the world ournament was at the second World Cup hosted by fascist Italy in 1934...
...In one league were Vasco and other esting thing about soccer is the idea of communication small clubs with more working-class associations, and in between classes and between diverse people while the other league were larger teams like Flamengo, absorbing tensions...
...It is at those games that soccer takes on more of a camavalesque atmosphere, especially if Brazil wins...
...The evolution of institutional Brazilian soccer can be traced back to the exclusive private sports clubs founded at the turn of the century where soccer sprouted its first roots...
...4. Luiz Costa-Lima, "Inter-Relations: Brazilian Soccer and Society...
...And today, social divisions-both imagined and real--continue to define Brazilians' intense relationVol XXXVII, No S MARcHIAPRIL 200423 23 Vol XXXVII, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 2004REPORT ON SPORT AND SOCIETY ship with the sport and their teams...
...More shockingly, the club Bahiano de Tenis ,ased in Salvador in the state of Bahia-both places iave a substantial black majority and are widely con- sidered the cultural home of Brazilian Africanity- adopted the same solution...
...One reason for this shift was apparently quite pragmatic: the desire to win more championships...
...But more importantly, as in I other Latin American countries, industrialization in t Brazil spurred the creation of teams affiliated with factories or a particular industry, allowing worker teams and clubs to be founded in and around urban industrial centers...
...Teo Ballv6 is NACLA's associate editor and a contributing news editor for the Connection to the Americas...
...He was one of the first prominent black Brazilian soccer players and deservedly retains his place in the panheon of Brazilian soccer stars to this day...
...Vasco was a club founded by Rio's Portuguese :ommunity...
...Nonetheless soccer was spreading and ith by the 1930s was increasingly being played across class and race lines...
...When Flamengo is scored on by Fluminense or any other team for that matter, the Fluminense torcida chants, "Hey, hey, hey...
...To say that a stadium is overflowing with fans on the day of a big game would be a drastic understatement...
...The survey also found that under the three official Brazilian socio-economic categories, the Flamengo fans were predominantly from the lowest socio-economic tier and Fluminense's from the top one...
...Not always...
...Although it was in this context that soccer became 'popularized," its elitist origins were not so easily extinguished and were all too often reflected in the port...
...The majority of clubs pressured Vasco da Gama to drop out of the tour- Brazilian players receive a minimum salary, and with litnament, claiming that its players were paid professionals tle or no education they are left with few options when and not amateurs...
...In its entirety, soccer more than any other Brazilian institution reflects in microcosm the complexities of race and class in Brazil and how these distinctions are often at the forefront of social interaction, making it impossible to discuss the two social categories separately...
...3. Tamir Bar-On...
...Conversely, Fluminense fans are referred to as "pd-de-arroz," or rice powder...
...In reference to those days, singer and current Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil wrote the song "Tradigao," in which he describes the club's position towards blacks: "In the times when blacks couldn't enter the Bahiano, not even through the kitchen le door...
...Many of these rivalries also arose from, and are still reinforced by, the social dynamics of their respective environs...
...This is not to say that racism in soccer does not exist-far from it as shown above...
...In the beginning of institutional soccer, the namesake Sdo Paulo team dropped out of the city league in protest against the professionalization of the sport, which was endorsed by teams like Corinthians--a club founded by manual laborers...
...broke away to form their own amateur league, leaving Nonetheless, according to Miranda Pereira, "The intersoccer in Rio split...
...and went on to win the championship with a series of However, just because black and white, rich and poor heart-stopping comebacks, attended the same games, it did not mean they sat The year after Vasco won the title, the elite teams together or that they could afford the same seats...
...Teams became more integrated, as did their fans...
...He was a Brazilian, the late Le6nidas da Silva, nicknamed "Black Diamond...
...From the 7,103 athletes regisclubs' protest was the fact that Vasco was the only team tered with the CBF in 1997, 54% received less than $40 racially integrated from top to bottom-from the players a month...
...today it's not much different...
...9 Although social divisions like race and class among the torcidas of a particular team are certainly more blurred today than they were in the early days of professional soccer, fans continue to rally around these real life distinctions and taunt opposing torcidas with the appropriate epithets...
...The Ambiguities of Football, Politics, Culture, and Social Transformation in Latin America," Sociological Research Online, Vol...
...Back when he was playing, a arge part of the athletes were still sons of high-class families...
...But it was not unheard of for a mulatto from a prominent family to be accepted as a player for a club...
...At the first World Cup, hosted by Uruguay in 1930, the Brazilian national team was made up exclusively of whites...
...To date, one of soccer's greatest contributions is that it helped instill in the country a respect for ethnic hybridity, where the mixing of races is seen as an advantage...
...t As a consequence of this process, factories producing c sports equipment began cropping up throughout the I country...
...The most prominent soccer clubs in the state of Rio le Janeiro-with the sole exception of Vasco da 3ama-resisted the entry of blacks to their soccer teams...
...Soccer's position near the top of the social pyramid was also a simple reality: the equipment for the sport-specifically the ball and the proper footwear-was imported, making them exorbitantly expensive items for average Brazilians...
...The latter interpretation of the nickname is taken from: Janet Lever, Soccer Madness: Brazil's Passion for the Worlds Most Popular Sport, (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1995...
...But one's team affiliation is usually inherited from a parent...
...In the end, as the only fully Brazilian soccer shed some of its exclusionist beginintegrated team of the tournament, Vasco did not drop out nings...
...7 To this day, Corinthians-whose fan base or torcida, according to the sports daily Lance!, is estimated at 24 million-is associated with the working-class, and Sdo Paulo with 17 million fans is identified with the elite...
...6.2, 1998, <littp://www.stanford.edulgroup/SHR/6-2/index.html...
...3ut soccer also provided a chance for workers to come ogether casually and share experiences, a rare opporunity for building consciousness...
...One reason for the acquiescence by teams opposed but most clubs were adamantly opposed to the sport to professionalization was that European teams were moving in that direction...
...6 themselves to the coaching staff-and was made up Another result of professionalization was that almost entirely of workers...
...The local rivalries partly stem from the fact that institutional soccer was first organized on city and state levels, because of Brazil's immense size, which posed logistical limitations for inter-state, much less national tournaments...
...The inversion of the Vol XXXVII, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 2004 25REPORT ON SPORT AND SOCIETY social order that Camaval represents may be a bit of a stretch for soccer games, but there are clearly some interesting parallels between the two events: on some level they both represent a fleeting egalitarian moment, they have been considered societal safety valves, each have become increasingly commercialized and violent, and both inspire intra-city rivalries...
...n the state of Sdo Paulo, the large Italian community's Palmeiras sports club adopted a more pragmatic solu- :ion to the race issue: it simply shut down its soccer program...
...And why shouldn't they...
...And it was under these circumstances that the skill, ability and talent of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a black man, earned him the nickname "The King," or "King Pel6," and status as a national hero...
...6. Rog6rio Daflon and Paulo Julio Clement, O Globo, 1997...
...Silence in the favela...
...Before, only Carnaval had the abilFluminense, Botafogo and Am6rica...
...the soccer team used the employees of the Portuguese factory owners, making it the first major squad to use black and working-class players...
...4, 1997, <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/2/4/2.html...
...Of course, the competition between the different Samba schools of Camaval does not even come close to the passionately profound and historic soccer rivalries within Brazil's cities and states...
...Italy and Spain-it provided impetus for professionalHowever, the majority of clubs that tolerated working- ization amid the opposition of larger clubs...
...selves could rely on their earnings as professional athSoccer was steadily moving towards professionalization, letes...
...many of its players were black...
...Data from the Brazilian Soccer that point...
...industrialization brought the first marked increase in the number of people who participated in the sport...
...2. Luiz Costa-Lima, "Inter-Relations: Brazilian Soccer and Society...
...To this day, some of the most heated rivalries are between local teams...
...W hen the national team plays, however, local team allegiances and their prejudices are for the most part temporarily put aside as Brazilians present a united front for international competitions...
...Does race or class instantly determine which team a Brazilian supports...
...THE BEAUTIFUL GAME...
...A survey of 1,280 people by TGI Brasil found that 45% considered themselves Flamengo fans while only 11% said they were Fluminense supporters...
...For many youngsters, going to one's first game is a familial right of passage...
...before seen as a problem, it was beginning to be understood as an advantage...
...Grlmio, for example, was started by Porto Alegre's dominant German immigrant population and refused entry to non-Germans, leading two Brazilians to establish Intemacional...
...So in a sense, the typical argument of sports as an opiate for proletarian complacency, panem et I circenses, or bread and circus, is partly true...
...The majority of teams feared beginning to recruit South American talent...
...8. Figures taken from 1998 study by the Brazilian sports daily Lance...
...In such circumstances, prejudices about race and class become harder to rationalize in the public consciousness...
Vol. 37 • March 2004 • No. 5
