Unpopular and unwanted - Teixeira's FIFA dreams under threat

President of the Brazilian Football Federation (CFB), Head of the World Cup 2014 OC and FIFA Excecutive Committee member Ricardo Teixeira, is currently going through a tough period of time manifested by police investigations into his work, public protects against his precidency and the Brazilian President trying to distance herself from him.

By Rafael Maranhão

22 August 2011

In São Paulo 500 people marched in protest against Ricardo Teixeira on August 13. Foto: Guilherme Zocchio/Flickr

According to his mentor and ex-father-in-law João Havelange, Ricardo Teixeira wanted to run for FIFA's presidency this year but was convinced to wait by Havelange himself.

“Put on a good World Cup, treat everyone well, and they’ll vote for you out of sheer gratitude,” he advised. Things, however, are not going as planned.

During the preliminary draw in July 30 in Rio de Janeiro, the first big event related to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Teixeira was treated as a mere spectator by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and the call for his removal as head of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) has never been stronger than now.

Federal and State governments, and ultimately the taxpayers, are financing almost all the work related to the World Cup in Brazil. More than USD 3.8 billion just in stadia construction and repairing.

A good relationship with the Brazilian government is essential to a successful tournament and, as João Havelange put it, to Ricardo Teixeira's future plans. But Dilma Rousseff, sworn in January this year, has never shown the same appreciation for Teixeira as her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with whom Teixeira used to meet almost every week.

Teixeira in bad standing
The man who has been in charge of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) for the past 22 years definitely fell out of favour with Rousseff after ignoring Brazil's football legend Pelé, who had not been invited to the preliminary World Cup draw. Rousseff made Pelé the Honorary Ambassador for the 2014 World Cup and took him to the event. She also requested an exclusive room for meetings where she could avoid being seen in public with Teixeira.

"With all respect to FIFA and CBF, our (World Cup 2014) face abroad will be Pelé, our Honorary Ambassador," said Dilma Rousseff to Brazilian magazine Carta Capital.

Another issue that upset the Brazilian president was the accreditation denial to local TV stations and newspapers that had criticized Ricardo Teixeira. In an interview published by Piauí Magazine early in July, Teixeira, who is also a member of FIFA's Executive Committee, threatened to do “Machiavellian things” in 2014 and deny press accreditations to some journalists. Last week, Brazilian Minister for Sports, Orlando Silva assured that all local media will be treated the same way during the World Cup. Silva is one of the ministers who kept their post after Rousseff's election. During Lula's term he was always a close ally to Teixeira. For this reason his statement was considered an additional sign that the Brazilian government wishes to keep a distance from the president of CBF.

Public protests
Teixeira's popularity is currently at a very low point. On August 13, a group of 500 people marched through the center of Brazil's biggest city, São Paulo, in a demonstration for the resignation of Brazilian football's most powerful figure. Similar protests had ocurred in Porto Alegre and in Rio de Janeiro, in front of the Marina da Glória, where the preliminary draw was taking place. The movement Fora Ricardo Teixeira (“Ricardo Teixeira Out”) has been organized through social media and close to 120,000 messages in support to the initiative have been posted on Twitter.

Ricardo Teixeira has already announced that he will leave the presidency of CBF in 2015. Whoever he supports as his successor is likely to win the election in which presidents from the 20 Serie A clubs and the 27 presidents of Brazil's State Football Federations take part.

The scenario in the Organizing Committee is different, however. Brazilian politics and football have not been as connected as it is today since the military dictatorship which ruled the country from 1964 to 1985. The 2014 presidential election will be held less than three months after the end of the World Cup and any scandal related to the head of the LOC may have political consequences.

Under investigation
Right now, Teixeira is under investigation of the Police of the Federal District, where the Brazilian capital Brasília is located, in a case related to the rights of a friendly game between Brazil and Portugal in November 2008.

The police is looking for the destination of around 3 million euros paid by the Federal District government to Ailanto Marketing, a one-month old company that organized the match. The police suspects Ricardo Teixeira was responsible for ceding the rights to Ailanto, owned by FC Barcelona president Sandro Rosell, a long-time friend of Teixeira. CBF denied it and declared that all Brazilian national team matches are negotiated by a Saudi Arabian company.

The news about this investigation broke last Saturday on Globo TV's nightly news Jornal Nacional, the most watched news show in the country.

In an interview with Piauí Magazine, Ricardo Teixeira said that he never worries about anything Brazilian media says about him with one exception. “I’ll only start sweating when I see these accusations on Jornal Nacional,” he said.
He must be worried by now.

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