The Brasileirão is in a predicament. The Brazilian national team is looked upon as unfavourable. Both have lost connections with the people who should support them, the common fans. The favelas are rife with football and smitten with the culture and love for the game, however, this love only goes as far as grass roots level.
I’m an avid watcher of the Série A in Brazil. I love to watch two attacking teams battle it out for the pride of their team, city and state. It’s what South American football is famous for. The fans love it, usually, but in recent years the fans have felt like they have no affinity with the players.
Players such as Neymar Junior or Thiago Silva have jetted off to Spain and France respectively to earn gigantic sums of money. These sums are what distance fans in a place with a huge gap in wealth. It has caused an epic decline in fans watching the domestic game.
Attendances are at an all time low. Last season’s champions, Cruzeiro, and their last game was against arguably against the biggest club in Brazil, Flamengo. The shocking thing was not the scoreline, a commanding 3-0 win for Cruzeiro, but the attendance. It was a dismal 10,283 people in a stadium that holds just over 53,000.
Here are highlights of that final game of the season:
Why was the attendance so low?
Mainly because of the idiotic kick off time and stadium choice. This is a common feature in the Brasileirão. The kick off time would be frowned upon in England, 4pm on a Sunday. This was moved for television coverage and instead of the usual schedule being moved, the game was moved around for soap operas. Could you imagine a game being moved for an episode of Emmerdale or Coronation Street? I, for one, would be outraged.
The other thing that is a factor for the low attendances is the location of the games. This one was put on in the Estádio Municipal João Havelange in Uberlândia. A massive 333 miles (by road) away from the home ground of Cruzeiro in Belo Horizonte. That is the road distance of Selhurst to the Scottish border using the M6. A good seven hour drive to watch your ‘local’ team.
It’s not the first game ever to be uplifted to another city. I remember watching Flamengo v Gremio last season, in a moved game. A crowd of 20,500 showed up to watch two clubs that aren’t even in the same state as the ground, the World Cup stadium in Brasilia. It is stupid moving games when proper fans can’t watch their own team in their home ground.
Brazilian football is also in a legal crisis. Teams have been taken to court left, right and centre. A high profile case in recent times was the now classic ‘stop your team from being relegated by filing a lawsuit against the team above you’ move that Rio club, Fluminense pulled.
League champions the year before, Flu finished fourth from bottom, in the relegation zone. São Paulo minnows, Portuguesa, finished just above them. The Rio club filed a lawsuit to the High Court of Sporting Justice about Portuguesa fielding a suspended player in their last head to head. The court ruled in favour of Flu and handed out a four point deduction to Portuguesa and relegating them in the process.
This decision split the nation. With stupid acts like that, no wonder that Brazilians are vexed about the state of football and politics.
My ultimate question is if Brazil win the World Cup, will it kick start the rejuvenation of the domestic game? I personally cannot wait to see.
