Brazilian soccer is a sport played (mostly) by blacks and run by whites. A boat soon this is the first conclusion that is drawn when taking a look at a racial photograph of the main professional categories of the country. Not even the incessant carousel of technicians (there are already 18 substitutions in 27 days in which only At. Mineiro, Palmeiras, Corinthians and Red Bull Bragantino have been left out) change the color of the snapshot.
The Brasileirao 2021 started in May with a single black coach in twenty teams, Roger machado (Fluminense), and currently has two, Mark (Fluminense) and Jair Ventura, the son of the mythical Jairzinho, (Youth). They are two out of twenty. 10%. If the focus is extended to Series B, exactly the same proportion is maintained: another two out of twenty, with Felipe Surian (Sampaio Correa) and Helio dos Anjos (Nautical) as an exception that breaks the noma.
“I see highly trained black coaches without opportunities or without having the same chances that others have. Because Andrade who won the league (in 2009 with Flamengo) they didn’t give him more options? In any other situation I would be directing another team, Why does this happen? Why are we black& rdquor ;, Mark put the finger on the sore, placing the debate in the front line of the media.
And Tite, who many times uses the watchtower of the Seleçao to become a spokesperson for the profession, raised his tone and verbalized the grievance. “Yes, there is a prejudice in relation to black coaches and it is ingrained because it is structural. We must fight him. It is an issue that responds to a generalized situation that exists in Brazil in social terms & rdquor ;, explained the Canarinha coach.
HISTORICAL RACISM
Discrimination has been going on for more than a century. The classic “O negro no futebol Brasileirao & rdquor ;, written by Mario Filho (the journalist who gives its name to the Maracana stadium), is a Bible of the sociology of sport, obligatory reading, which narrates in great detail all the racist and social exclusion barriers that black Brazilians had to face to be footballers. It is no coincidence, for example, that goalkeeper Barbosa was chosen as the scapegoat for Maracanazo.
Pelé broke with the stigma that blacks did not have the psychological capacity to withstand pressure, but ‘O Rei’ could not normalize everything. The benches (and also the offices and the boxes) continue today to be an oasis for whites, an explicit space of racial exclusion. It is by no means the only one. Brazil has 213 million inhabitants and 56.10% of its population declares itself black. However, only 12.8% of the judges are black, but Afro-descendants account for 77% of the murders. The risk of a black being assassinated is 260% higher than that of any other race in Brazil
In this context, football is a reflection of what a continental country is like that it has not yet been able to stitch the infamous rift, in the form of racism, exclusion and prejudice, that was created over nearly four centuries of slavery.
