Rest of the World

J. Todd Wilkins

Imagine a fantasy land where the weather is always fair and sports can be played daily year round. Picture a world in which an endless supply of young, talented and desperate players grapple over any chance to show off their skills. Envision a country where the older generations can pinpoint their exact locations during World Cup wins and losses with better clarity than their activities of the last week. Visualize a magic kingdom of football where innovation, creativity, and theatrical play are worshiped as the holy trinity. I call this land Brazil. 

With this in mind, why have the Brazilian leagues become little more than a compilation of feeder clubs for European powerhouses? Several reasons have combined to create a system based upon a mass exodus when players turn 18. In order to find a way to compete with those clubs across the pond and keep talent at home, the CBF (Brazilian FA) must face the realisation that change needs to come from within. The myriad of factors plaguing Brazilian football are evident on a daily basis, and range from socio-economic difficulties to mismanagement of both domestic and foreign investments. In order to understand why the clubs have failed to reach their potential, it is important to examine where the players come from and how this plays into the larger issues at hand.

The general conception in the world regarding Brazilian footballers is that they come from poor and humble beginnings. Let me be the first to tell you, this is definitely not that far off the truth. While players such as Kaká buck the trend of modest upbringings, it is easy to name several players who have made it out of the favelas (slums) and onto the international stage. Ronaldinho Gaucho, born to a ship worker and nurse; Alexander Pato, whose parents couldn’t afford to pay for a surgery to remove a tumor from his arm; and some guy named Pelé, who shined shoes as a kid to make money in São Paulo, all made it big in world football. For further evidence, Ronaldo AND Adriano both came from the same poverty stricken northern suburb of Rio de Janeiro called Bento Ribeiro.

The common bond between these stars and their early struggles is survival. Most residents of the favelas are born into poverty with little chances of making it out by adulthood. There are three typical means of survival in a favela; work in the city for terrible wages and try to save enough to feed your family, become involved in the illicit drug trade and the risks that accompany such a lifestyle, or football. The last one is the only option capable of providing the financial gains to move the family out of the slum and not end up in jail or killed. For this reason, many kids are pushed hard into both futsal and football by the age of just four in order to catch the eyes of scouts and managers. Parents will devote themselves entirely to a child who shows promise of greatness, on the slightest chance that their son may one day become a professional footballer.

While these types of conditions are seen all across the world, Brazil is unique in the fact that such a large number of players rise up this way. It is safe to assume an extremely high percentage of Brazilian players currently abroad would have come from a poor neighbourhood. The big question is if players can earn enough money with a domestic club to move their family out of poverty, why have so many chosen to move abroad? The answer lies in the simple economic rule of supply and demand. Europe has the cash, Brazil has a nearly limitless supply of players who are ready, willing and able. But this alone is not the only reason.

What drives today’s game? Money! Not just for the players, but for the clubs, the agents, the team presidents and the sponsors. Thomas Freidman’s concept that the world is flat and globalization will lead to jobs being shipped to cost efficient countries could not be further from the truth in the world of football. The more money a club is willing to pay, the more people want in on it. The European clubs not only offer the chance to play the game at a higher level, but so many more opportunities off the pitch. Even if a player comes from a well off family, how could an 18 year-old say no to the perks that accompany a European contract? How can they say no to not only the contract money, but to the ungodly amounts of exposure, endorsements, sponsors and a lifestyle that most players have only seen in movies or dreamt of? They can’t, and they don’t.

The CBF and club executives alike are more than willing to develop players in their youth academies, give them a shot at first team football at the age of 16 and groom them for stardom, all in order to drive up the price until the players turn 18 and can legally be transferred. Robinho shocked many by staying with Santos until he turned 21, a relatively old age for Brazilian stars, even after the exit of his 19 year-old teammate Diego to Porto a year earlier. That extra year raised his transfer tag even higher and only the richest clubs in the world could even compete to meet his buyout clause.

These buyout clauses have also become exceedingly high in Brazil, as teams sign potential stars to healthy professional contracts knowing that they will make more profits on the eventual buyout of that contract when the European clubs come courting. This mindset of money over quality has haunted the Brazilian leagues for decades. Despite Brazil having the 10th largest economy in the world, clubs continue to look abroad for financial support and use the sale of players to help offset mismanagement of funds and to keep clubs functioning on a daily basis.

This mentality has turned the leagues where the beautiful game was invented into nothing more than showcases of selfishness and often soulless football. While fans will always live and die by the results of their team, players often show little commitment to a club and the fans are rarely shy about showing their disapproval to disloyal team members. While fans are aware that their starlet will eventually leave them, they demand the highest level of effort from the player while they are wearing the team colours. In the Brazilian system, players rarely get a free pass from fans for leaving the club for Europe, unless they put in solid national team performances.

For anyone privileged enough to catch the international friendly between Portugal and Brazil, it was hard not to notice the passion, the craftsmanship and the essence of Brazilian football on display. Rarely does such a performance happen other than for the national team. The leagues cannot seem to render the same level of commitment and effort as the national team, perhaps due to the lack of loyalty and support from the clubs.

When a system is predicated on the mutual exploitation of each and every party involved, how can the Brazilian leagues hope to rise up and challenge European football in class and prestige