illustrates Maíra Valentim
edition Felipe van Deursen
After the fateful 7 x 1, the smell of rogue in the air got stronger. After all, our powerful team could only be humiliated like this if the country had sold the World Cup. Or not?
MINEIRATZEN
The 8th of July 2014 entered the annals of football as the day the Brazilian team suffered the biggest and most humiliating defeat in its history. In the semifinal of the Cup hosted by Brazil itself, with Mineirão full, the CBF team won 7 x 1 against Germany. «The responsibility for the catastrophic result is mine», declared the then coach Luiz Felipe Scolari after the match. But there are those who say that the players entered the field knowing the defeat and that everything would have been arranged
ADVANTAGE IN EVERYTHING
The selection would have come across the trick for several reasons. First, players would have received a hefty fee for the feat. In addition, the agreement would include Brazil’s title in the next Cup and the possibility of the country hosting the World Cup again before 2030. Brazil would still have the highest place on the Olympic podium guaranteed. That is, despite the humiliation of 2014, in the end the country would take the sixth in Russia in 2018 and the unprecedented gold in the Olympics in Rio, in 2016
THE LETTER
The scheme was denounced in a letter signed by an alleged journalist named Gunther Schweitzer. “If people knew what happened at the World Cup, they would be disgusted”, said the title of the letter. Gunther’s source would be one of the players of the national team. but also because of Neymar’s injury in the previous game, which prematurely took him out of the World Cup
KNEE IN NEYMAR
In the quarter-finals, Brazil beat Colombia. But the big fact of the game was Neymar’s fractured vertebra, after taking a knee from full-back Zuñiga. Shortly after the star player was taken off the field, images appeared that would denounce another hoax: Neymar, lying on a stretcher, face covered by a towel, a tattoo with his son’s name… I mean,the tattoo, on the right arm, was not there! It could only be a double. Another video would show Neymar combining the play on the field with the Colombian.The frame would serve to rid Brazil’s best player of humiliation in the semifinal. Also, without Neymar, Brazil’s defeat would be less suspicious.
BITTER MEMORY
The suspicion of fraud made many remember 1998. In that Cup, shortly before the final, against France, Ronaldo, the team’s biggest star, had a seizure, caused by a nervous breakdown, which compromised his performance. 3 x 0. At the time, there were complaints that the team had sold the result in exchange for hosting the World Cup. In addition to the suspicious result, the two Cups have more things in common: both in 1998 and in 2014, the president of Fifa, who commands football and organizes the event, was Joseph Blatter
MORE INVOLVED
Germany would also be in the 2014 scheme, since the title had a price: Joseph Blatter would have facilitated the German victory in exchange for support from the country’s federation for his re-election, in 2006 and in 2010. In those same years, the titles of, respectively, Italy and Spain would also have been conquered within the same corrupt scheme. Thus, the three Europeans would be world champions and Blatter would perpetuate himself in power. Good for everyone. But there is another theory about the supposed buyer
THE GIRL OF THE BALL
Who would have ordered the mug for the Germans was a symbol company of the country, Adidas. It manufactures the official ball of the Cup since 1970, and sponsored eight of the 32 teams that came to Brazil. The company would have demanded that one of them win the Cup. It ended with the champion and runner-up, Argentina. Thus, in the final, an event attended by more than 1 billion people, all the players on the pitch were wearing Adidas.
FOR ANOTHER
The greatest evidence of the Brazilian failure was nothing more than the poor football presented
- Versions almost identical to that letter from Gunther Schweitzer denounced fraud in all World Cups since 1998. Only names and dates changed
- ME spoke with Schweitzer, who is actually a physical trainer in Mogi das Cruzes, SP. It all started in 1998, when he forwarded an email denouncing the sale of the Cup. Over time, he was transformed into the author of the letter.
- The disappearance of Neymar’s tattoo was never clear. Possibly a light effect, combined with the low resolution of the image, erased it
- Paying players to lose is a scheme that even exists in sports, but the Cup is an event that is too targeted and too expensive. In 2014, FIFA disbursed US$576 million in prize money. If that’s the figure for the official prizes, imagine the amount of money to bribe the 23 players from the national teams plus the members of the delegations, the referees… Too risky
- The level of scandals in FIFA and the CBF reached new heights in 2015. Sepp Blatter was suspended from football for eight years, José Maria Marin, former president of the CBF, was arrested and so on. But most of the complaints spoke of corruption in the choice of venues, marketing and television contracts. Nothing has come up about changing the outcome of games. Yet
SOURCES ESPN Brasil, VEJA, El País, UOL, Terra and R7