Race, Politics, Power.

The readings for this week as well as the video for the Brazilian player Garrincha highlighted a particular common thread amongst themselves. Race and ethnicity plays a massive part in the evolution of soccer as a sport and the diversity of national teams has created superstars that are both revered and despised simultaneously. In countries in Europe as well as South America, there was debate over the inclusion of players of different races on the national teams that would be sent to compete in the World Cup. The inclusion of important players to national teams such as Pele and Garrincha for Brazil, Gradin and Delgado for Uruguay, and Sakhou and Lakuku for France sparked debates in their home countries that they were representing in the national competition. In particular, Brazilian soccer in the 1920s and 1930s suffered from issues regarding race in clubs and at the national level. Players such as Friedenreich and Domingos tried to “cover up” their blackness and pass as mixed or white players. Leonidas could not pass as anything other than black, and suffered racial abuse as a result of a characteristic that he is unable to control. There are also important ties to politics as well as corruption within the sport as well. Far-right French politicians attacked the French national team in their qualifying run for the World Cup in 2014 to be held in Brazil. After a loss to Ukraine, Marine Le Pen, the daughter of a French politician in the 1990s known as Jean-Marie Le Pen attacked the French national team by accusing them of being too “foreign” and claiming the bad results of the national team were an effect of “ultraliberalism” in France. She even suggested that the French national team stop being paid to participate in matches for the country, highlighting a connection between soccer and politics. In 2001, the Brazilian Football Confederation was the subject of a congressional investigation into corruption where Nike had bought the right to schedule the teams matches and Ronaldo was called in to testify to why the Selecao was unable to mark Zinedine Zidane in the 1998 World Cup.