Class, Ethnicity and Color in the Making of Brazilian Football
-The article discusses how the elites in Brazil picked up soccer from the British. Some of the elites of Brazil would send their children to school in England and when the students returned they would bring soccer back with them and the popularity of the sport grew quickly. The clubs that were first founded were elitist in nature and also functioned as social clubs.
“The clubs turned into places for urban socializing; by providing participation in or attendance at physical and sporting activities, they prolonged the receptions and soirées bringing together the dominant families from early twentieth-century sobrados (town mansions) in those two cities”(242).
-Football expanded to factory clubs where upper class managers and overseers would introduce the game to workers who would adopt it. Barriers prevented working classes from mastering the game though due to them lacking the free time and money that the upper class could devote to learning the game. Over time though workers who were skilled were afforded certain privileges.
-Ethnic clubs like Vasco da Gama threaten the superior status of the elite clubs and the elite clubs attempted to bar Vasco da Gama from competing with them but they were ultimately unsuccessful. As Vasco da Gama and other clubs with working class players found ways to compensate their players and pass literacy tests the elite clubs imposed. The elite clubs ultimately withdrew from the leagues rather than play with these teams.
-As Italian and white players were recruited abroad black players in Brazil played more and any lack of success by the national team was blamed on their race. The World Cup victory in 1958 helped contradict some of these prejudices
“It took Brazil’s international vindication in Sweden t reinforce a positive self- assessment of Brazilian football, reversing people’s sense of inferiority”(263).
Italian Immigrants, Brazilian Football, and the Dilemma of National Identity
This article also deals with the history of football coming to Brazil but focuses more on the experiences of Italian immigrant players and spends a lot of time examining the Palestra Itália club. This club was founded by Italians for the benefit of Italian immigrants.
“The club was as Italian off the field as it was on it. Detailed membership information for the early twentieth century is unavailable, but all evidence suggests that the vast majority of members, of whom there were over 5000 by the mid- 1930s, were Italians or of Italian descent. Every director, every member of the Deliberative Council, from the club’s founding until even after it traded its Italian name for a Portuguese one, was ethnically Italian”(286).
This composition of membership would could lead one to believe the club was more pro Italy than pro Brazil and indeed the club did have a series of correspondence with the fascist government of Italy and some of their players did leave to play for Italian clubs and the Italian national team. The club itself resisted the migration of its players though and saw the Italian clubs that could offer their players legal salaries as opposed to sinecures as a threat to their club’s competitiveness.
After the world war players who had been attacked by the press for leaving Brazil returned and were able to be successes as Brazilian soccer players though. The author’s work concludes that the story illustrates the shortcoming of false amateurism and how a national identity in flux can change with monetary incentives.
Questions
- Why did it take so long after the exit of elite clubs for professionalism to be adopted?
- What was the experiences of the Brazilian immigrants who returned to Italy during the war? If the supported the regime how much was that held against them if they returned to Brazil?
In response to your question about elite clubs’ adoption of professionalism in Brazil, I think there are simple answers to this. I believe elite club owners and managers were threatened by relinquishing amateurism. I believe this stance because to become professional would mean accepting lower social classes into a major of Brazilian leisure. I think individuals in possession of something of value want to protect and preserve it as their own. I think nativism contributed, as I’m sure some were intimidated by the growing power of football clubs organized by immigrants from Italy, Portugal, and Germany.
In response to your analysis on of the quote on the second article, I think there could also be another way to think about the Italian identity seen through the club. I read this part thinking that the Italian’s used soccer to put value on their immigration. As Brazilians, they maintained a connection to their home country and its pastime of soccer, which they were able to use to gain the respect of the various groups in their new home. The fact that a majority of the clubs members were Italian or of Italian descent could reflect how strongly they connected with this idea.