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Football factory Fans, players suffer in Brazil's domestic game
Apparently, there are an estimated 10,000 Brazilian professionals earning their living outside of Brazilian soccer. Ten thousand! That means there are more Brazilian playing professional soccer abroad than there are professional soccer players (of all nationalities) in Italy, Spain, Germay, England, Portugal, France, Holland and Belgium combined. If all these guys are abroad, who's left to play soccer in Brazil? The answer, of course, is that the Brazilian game, perhaps more than any other in the world, has the extraordinary ability to reinvent and regenerate itself constantly. Someone leaves, somebody else takes his place, often with little drop-off in quality. These self-healing powers have allowed Brazil's domestic league to survive decades of emigration.
They have enabled Brazilian soccer to be weather the mismanagement, crooks, corruption and sheer stupidity which have blighted what Pele called The Beautiful Game. You've got to wonder however how much longer it will be able to hang on. Brazil is a populous country filled with people who love and understandthe game. Stadiums should be full, week in, week out, but they aren't. Television and sponsorship revenues should be sky-high, but they aren't. Even the national team, which has earned near-legendary status worldwide, is under scrutiny: former coach Wanderley Luxemburgo is accused, among other things, of taking illegal cash payments in exchange for handing out caps. And a few weeks ago none other than Ronaldo was interrogated by the Brazilian Congress about why the team lost the 1998 World Cup final. Insane scheduling, late payments to players, officials using clubs as pawns to further their own political careers, the list goes on and on. It's a testament to the strength and depth of Brazilian soccer that it has survived. The issue here isn't the national team. There is enough talent and experience to win plenty of World Cups, and sponsors such as Nike, which signed a 10-year, US$150 million deal with the Brazilian Federation (CBF) in 1996, guarantee that the money will continue to roll in at the highest level. The issue is what happens beneath the highest tier. It's one thing for talented African players to go abroad at a tender age. In many countries facilities simply aren't up to scratch, wages are pitiful and quality coaching non-existent. But Brazil is not Burkina Faso. It should be able to retain at least some of its best and brightest, at least for a while. Instead, many of the men running the game, from CBF president Ricardo Teixeira on down, seem to have no handle on how to run a sport, much less a business. That's why the talent-drain becomes inevitable. Who would want to stay in Brazil and put up with being exploited every day when a decent wage can be earned elsewhere? The fans have been hanging in there... for now. At some point, many will turn their back on decrepit stadiums, endemic corruption and what amounts to a betrayal of the national sport. What can be done? Brazil's Congress, with its far-reaching inquiry, is taking the first steps, but you can't rely on politicians alone to fix problems, especially when many have strong links to soccer clubs themselves. Nor would you want to call in FIFA. The game's governing body has enough of its own issues to resolve. Not to mention the fact that most high-level FIFA officials were either appointed by or owe some personal favor to former FIFA president Joao Havelange, who happens to be Teixeira's father-in-law. The impetus must come from players and supporters, but organizing them into some coherent force will be difficult. The Brazilian league needs greater transparency, and a greater emphasis must be placed on making youth development pay. Right now, the system simply benefits club owners and agents. Example: Club X finds 10 talented 16-year-olds (of which there are plenty). Five make it to the first team by the time they are 19 and three of them (Players A, B and C) are sold abroad. Club X makes a little bit of money, but Chairman Y and Agent Z are the ones who truly benefit. They skim a chunk of the cash off the top and take some more under the table. Almost none of the money makes it back to Club X, which means there are less funds to invest in youth development, facilities, etc. That's not where it ends. Player C, who joined a small club in the Portuguese second division, makes it big. He moves to Boavista (for US$100,000) then to Real Sociedad (for US$5 million) and then to Juventus (for US$20 million), all by the time he is 24. Agent Z has been earning a hefty commission all along (the total spending on his client, after all, is more than US$25 million, which means he probably pocketed a couple million -- between transfer commissions and contract percentages --himself). Some of that money gets kicked back to Chairman Y, with whom he has a cozy relationship but, as for Club X, it doesn't see any of the money. In a normal world, Player C would have stayed at Club X until he was 23 or 24 and been ready for the move to Real Sociedad or Juventus. At least this way Club X would have received more appropriate compensation for finding the player, and some of those funds would remain in Brazilian soccer. But the way things stand, Brazilian domestic soccer risks becoming simply a gigantic football-producing factory whose sole purpose is enriching its owners, rather than a legitimate, top-notch competition. One solution might be forcing Brazilian clubs who sell young players abroad to insert a "development clause" in their contract. This means that each time the player is sold (say, until he reaches 23) a percentage of his transfer fee (say, 10 percent) gets funneled back to Brazil. The funds could then be channeled back to the clubs, which would have to use them for certain purposes: coaching, youth development, improving facilities, etc. Under this system, Ronaldo alone would have produced an additional US$7 to $8million for the Brazilian game. It's just a suggestion and it may not be ideal. But unless something is done, Brazil's domestic game could suffer tremendously. And, as usual, the victims won't be the owners, but the fans and the players. Based in London, Gabriele Marcotti writes a weekly column on international soccer for CNNSI.com.
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