BRAZILIAN SOCCER & RACE

    Soccer was first brought to Brazil by the English, and at first was passed on to the Brazilian  elites.  As time went on every class began to play this new sport.  Soccer became immensely popular and widely played.  Many blacks (lower/working-class) found soccer as a way to improve their oppressed lives.  On the other hand the whites (upper-class) found it as a way control the threatening lower-class energy.  This view of the upper-class led them to create a commercialized soccer, in order to get the masses to play, in a way that ensured social tranquility. (This was both Liberating and Restricting.)  Soccer seemed to serve the interests of every type of person. soccer clubs were eventually formed to represent the “barrio” or district that people came from.  These established teams played with a rubber ball, and made there own uniforms.  For the poor these soccer clubs became a way of life, people made close friends during work and made the friendship stronger on the soccer field.  The game of soccer to these people represented their lives and the hardships that they faced.  This is exemplified in the idea of a “Picardia” or person who is quick witted and doesn’t get kicked or hit.  It showed that a lower-class person opposed to power had to weaken it or wear it out.  There was a huge progression in the sport of soccer; in the beginning it represented “a material sacrifice, not a material reward.”  Poor players could feel things that they had never experienced before.  They were still poor, but soccer made them feel valuable, like Gods.  The crowd loved the players and cheered for them.  In the 1920’s more tangible rewards were given to these skilled soccer players.  The rich factory owners who watched the games and saw the players skills, decided to form their own teams.  Soccer allowed the lower-class to obtain jobs, as long as they played for the factory team.  Here they got to play a sport that they loved, have a job and earned money.  These factory teams also formed bonds between the workers, managers and owners.  The only downside was that it created a division among the working-class, because these people used the sport and the players to benefit themselves. Soccer became a way of escaping the burden of everyday life, as well as escaping the oppression by the upper-class.  In the 1920’s soccer took a drastic turn when there was a disappearance of the elite soccer clubs.  There were many reasons for this disappearance, but the main ones were that they were defeated by the lower-class teams, they had less of a pool to recruit from and few upper-classmen wanted to participate on a team with “black or mestizos.” These lower-class players had finally found an identity, they could be proud of.   

The History of soccer is explained in detail on the following Website: http://podiatry.curtin.edu.au/worldcup/soccer.html

The sport of soccer, in Brazil is considered a people’s game,it started as a white players sport and then moved to blacks.  The country had a complex national identity, made up of all different racial groups; soccer was the one thing that Brazilians could identify with.  The poor Brazilians found self-worth in soccer much like the lower-class in Peru.  For many Brazilians the sport derived from overcoming poverty, the poor turned to this sport because there was no other national sport in Brazil that could compete with it. When the Brazilian team played the team from Uruguay, and lost the Brazilian people looked for someone or something to blame.  When they lost the dreaded racism reared its ugly head.  This once unifying sport seemed to disband; the people blamed the loss on two “dark-skinned players.” Many Brazilians began to voice there opinions saying that they didn’t want blacks to play, there was no need for a racially mixed team.  It seemed that the idea of “Brazilianess” that the sport of soccer promoted was no longer important.  After this loss, although devastated the Brazilian people eventually turned back to soccer in order to unify there community and more importantly the nation. What gave these Brazilians their uncanny soccer skill was their ability to improvise.  The Brazilian soccer merged sport with samba, it was like an art form, and every move was so fluid and graceful.  It also showed a social justice that the players and people didn’t see everyday.  The emergence of soccer in Brazil changed the way that soccer was played through out the world.  People who came to watch and play in the games were mesmerized by the skill that the players showed.  Not only with the players but the fans were also involved in the games.  The sport gave the crowd a feeling of importance in the games; they were as much a part of the game as the players were.  Soccer had unified the masses; it had gone from “Pit to Pinnacle.”

This picture of the great Brazilian player Pele, illustrates how the game was once an art form. 

To many outsiders, the sport was not as lavish as the Brazilians depicted it.  Brazilian children were playing soccer and not leaning the basics of education. This gave way to the idea of the “Ignorant Soccer player,” that the people were amazing at soccer but only because they focused all their energy on it.  Soccer also caused a lot of savage behavior during the games. Often riots would brake out; there would be fights between the fans of both teams. "There are many examples of poor, and even hazardous, human environments resulting from a lack of understanding of the traffic flow relationships and space requirements of pedestrians. A number of authorities have been using maximum pedestrian capacity as a basis for design. Yet, analysis of time-lapse photography of pedestrian traffic flow on walkways and stairs has shown that capacity is reached when there is a dense crowding of pedestrians, causing restricted and uncomfortable locomotion. Insufficient consideration of human space requirements has resulted in inadequate design of many areas where pedestrians may be required to accumulate in large groups. In some instances, overcrowding of these areas has resulted in injury and loss of life." (Fruin. Pedestrian Planning and Design.)  The sport also promoted the abuse of alcohol, as the fans would get drunk at the games and create these fights.  Things seemed fine on the outside, but when examining Brazilian soccer there were a lot of shocking things that came out of it.

"A sea of yellow and green washed over Brazil on Sunday as the country took to the streets -- dancing, singing, shouting and drinking. The celebrations went off mostly without any major incidents, except for three fatal shootings."( Katherine Baldwin) These soccer matches cause many problems, such as the drinking and shootings mentioned above, but they also promote nationalism.  The picture below captures Brazilian soccer fans on "Sao Paulo's main strip, Avenida Paulista, as 50,000 Brazilians of all income and ethnic groups congregated for the daylong festivities."(Katherine Baldwin)

    A problem that  seemed to be diminishing in the sport of soccer, has once again reared its ugly face. Race is a direct cause of race in the community, it did not start in the sport of soccer, but rubbed off on to it. "When these "native" are confronted with people of other races in an environment where tensions are already high, something is bound to give.  This is not an excuse for racist behavior, it is just an attempt at understanding the problem. When you consider that many soccer clubs in Europe were founded along racial or ethnic lines, how can racism not be an issue in stadiums? Take a look at the color of Glasgow Rangers' away and strip this season and tell me that certain clubs not only turn a blind eye to the racism problem, but encourage that type of behavior. Here is the real problem: racism is not an issue simply in soccer stadiums. It is an issue that pervades every aspect of European life, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The tide of immigration from African, Asia, and the Middle East is not going to slow down any time soon.  One of the more disturbing aspects of the issue is that for many racist and skinhead groups, soccer stadiums are the only place where they feel free to air their opinions. What this says about the state of free speech in Europe is anyone's guess, but must be addressed as well.  In a society where there are fewer and fewer universals anymore, soccer is the one force that has the power to unite large groups of people. UEFA could make some serious progress  on this issue and help the entire continent if they made the right moves. They could implement policies that reach deep into each community to introduce people from different backgrounds to each other.  They could use some of the revenue that it turns over every year to establish programs that remove the barriers of race and color from soccer...No one should underestimate the power over social issues such as this one. The role that sports have played in thawing the lines of race cannot be underestimated."  (Simon Tanton)  This is a response to his writings on racism in European soccer.