U.S. probes Nike payments Under Brazil deal

Aruna Viswanatha and Sara Germano – The Wall Street Journal, 6/12/2015

U.S. authorities are examining payments made by Nike Inc. under a groundbreaking 1996 soccer sponsorship with Brazil for possible evidence of any wrongdoing by the company in addition to its counterparts in the deal, people familiar with the matter said.

The examination indicates the company is still of interest as the Justice Department pursues its wide-ranging probe of corruption in the global soccer business.

Allegations of corruption around Nike’s 10-year, $160 million agreement to sponsor Brazil’s national team are discussed in barely veiled terms in the Justice Department’s 161-page indictment of officials in and around soccer’s governing body, FIFA.

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Former Brazil soccer boss probed for money laundering

Reuters – 06/01/2015

The former head of the Brazilian soccer federation, Ricardo Teixeira, is facing charges of money laundering and tax evasion, a police source said on Monday, as an international bribery scandal put the spotlight on Brazil’s national sport.

Teixeira’s successor as president of the CBF federation, José Maria Marin, was arrested on Wednesday by Swiss police along with six other executives of world soccer body FIFA on indictments for corruption brought by U.S. authorities.

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Is Nike the unidentified company in the FIFA bribery case?

Matthew Townsend, Tariq Panja – Bloomberg Business, 05/27/2015

Nike Inc. said it’s cooperating with authorities on the same day the U.S. unsealed charges saying an unidentified sportswear company took part in bribing a Brazilian soccer official for a sponsorship agreement.

The deal described in an indictment of FIFA officials mirrors one obtained by Nike. The charges refer to a U.S. company that signed a partnership with the Brazilian federation in 1996. Nike, based in Beaverton, Oregon, announced its decade-long pact with Brazil that year.

“Nike believes in ethical and fair play in both business and sport and strongly opposes any form of manipulation or bribery,” the company said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement. “We have been cooperating, and will continue to cooperate, with the authorities.” Nike, which isn’t named in the indictment, declined to comment on the allegations.

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Brazil has a capacity to do the unexpected

Brazil Institute Director Paulo Sotero will be taking part in the prestigious Chautauqua Institution’s lecture series this week, entitled, “Brazil: Rising Superpower.”

Following is the piece he authored on Brazil in a global context which will be the basis of his lecture on Friday, August 1.

Paulo Sotero – The Chautauquan Daily, 7/31/2014

Not a country for beginners, as composer Antônio Carlos Jobim famously said, Brazil often does what is least expected. It did the unexpected in the World Cup — twice. First, by losing the soccer tournament it was overwhelmingly favored to win at home, and secondly hosting an excellent event, free of the logistical nightmares that were predicted by some and feared by most. It could do it again in the October presidential contest and frustrate the re-election plans of President Dilma Rousseff, who until recently was seen as heavily favored to renew her mandate for four more years.

Here is another surprise: The embarrassing World Cup performance of Brazil’s beloved Seleção and Rousseff’s electoral troubles are unrelated. A Datafolha opinion poll released last week showed that the sour national mood detected by a Pew Research Center survey before the event returned as soon as the games ended. With the economy stagnating and Brazilians increasingly worried about rising inflation and other adverse economic news, 54 percent now say the World Cup brought more costs than benefits to the country, down 8 points since July 1 despite the overall perception that the tournament was a success.

Brazil World Cup 2014 can be catalyst for change – Ronaldo

BBC, 11/06/2013

Legendary Brazil striker Ronaldo says next year’s World Cup will be a “beginning for change” in his country.

Soccerex cancelled its football conference due to be held in Rio next month, blaming “ongoing civil unrest”, although the State of Rio and World Cup organisers dispute that reason.

But Ronaldo said: “The latest polls show that 90% of Brazilians are in favour of the World Cup.

“We need to use this World Cup to call for more investments.”

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The defeat that Brazil can’t forget

Joshua Robinson – Wall Street Journal, 11/04/2013

Millions of fans had flooded the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s northern neighborhoods, surrounding the Estadio Mario Filho, better known as the Maracanã, the biggest soccer stadium on the planet. The luckiest 200,000 among them had been allowed inside, well over the stated capacity of around 174,000. They had smuggled in streamers and flares and drums. Carnival on the terraces. For hours, they danced and sang in the sun, long before a single player took the field. They had all come to Brazil’s new cathedral to soccer, purpose-built for this 1950 World Cup, to bask in their country’s proudest moment. Brazil was about to beat Uruguay and win its first World Cup. They knew it.

Everyone had told them so. That morning, July 16, the newspaper O Mundo, albeit a second-tier one, printed a photo of the team under the headline, “These Are the World Champions!” And before the teams kicked off, the mayor of Rio, Angelo Mendes de Moraes, greeted the Brazilians over the loudspeaker. “You, players, who in less than a few hours will be hailed as champions by millions of your compatriots!” he said, according to “Futebol,” Alex Bellos’s history of Brazilian soccer. “You, who have no rivals in the entire hemisphere! You, who will overcome any other competitor! You, who I already salute as victors!”

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Brazil’s soccer secretary opposes premier league-style structure

Tariq Panja – Bloomberg, 10/28/2013

Brazil’s plans to reform soccer after decades of mismanagement won’t include an English Premier League-style model because it would weaken the national team, according to the government official overseeing the sport.

Lawmakers, club presidents and the Brazilian football confederation, or CBF, have been discussing the creation a new soccer structure as Brazil prepares to host the 2014 World Cup.

Revenue for Brazil’s top 24 teams reached 3 billion reais ($1.4 billion) in 2012, according to a study by bank Itau BBA. The 20 clubs in the Premier League, soccer’s richest, generated 2.3 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) in 2011-12, Deloitte LLP said. England’s elite division has opened up to foreign ownership and teams are largely made up of overseas talent, reducing game-time at the top level for local players.

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2014 world cup: in Brazil, the beautiful game belongs to white middle class

James Young – The Independent, 09/29/2013

Wearing top hat and tails before July’s Botafogo v Flamengo classico in Rio, Guilherme Figueira didn’t look like the typical football fan. But this was no show of sartorial exuberance. Guilherme and his pals were so attired as a protest against spiralling ticket prices in Brazil. “The Maracana has changed,” he said. “It’s now a stadium for the aristocracy. So we decided to dress the part.”

Against a backdrop of nationwide demonstrations over the rising cost of living, corruption and expenditure on next year’s World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics, the marketing agency Pluri Consultants reported that tickets in Brazil are the most expensive of the world’s major leagues, when local wage levels are taken into account.

Since the country’s new World Cup stadiums have opened, the already steep prices have leapt into the stratosphere. While higher tariffs are to be expected in plush new venues, the cheapest full-price ticket for the recent Vasco da Gama v Corinthians mid-table fixture in Brasilia’s Mane Garrincha stadium was an eye-watering R$160 (£44.50) – only R$10 less than it will cost to watch a World Cup quarter-final next year.

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Neymar and Brazil rout Spain and live up to their billing

James Montague – The New York Times, 06/30/2013

Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior was having an unusually quiet first half when the ball was poked through to him on the left side of Spain’s penalty area.

It was a few minutes before halftime of the FIFA Confederations Cup final between host Brazil and the world and European champion Spain at the refurbished Maracanã stadium.

Before the tournament, there was still a question about the ability of Neymar, a 21-year-old Brazilian striker.

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Members of Brazil’s national soccer team offer support to protesters

Associated Press, 06/19/2013

FORTALEZA, Brazil – The historic wave of protests that has swept across Brazil in recent days has gained some important allies — the players of the Brazilian national football team.

Brazil is hosting the Confederations Cup, a tournament of continental champions which serves as a warm-up for next year’s World Cup, but the Brazilian players’ focus has turned to the demonstrations which have taken over a country fighting for improvements in basic services such as public transportation, schools and hospitals.

The Brazilian players had been trying to avoid the subject, but it became impossible not to talk about it after hundreds of thousands of countrymen took to the streets to show their displeasure with politicians, authorities and local government.

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