Last Saturday (9), a Bolsonar federal criminal police officer felt free to invade a PT municipal guard’s birthday party and shoot him dead in Foz do Iguaçu. Last Wednesday (13), a Santos fan felt free to invade the Vila Belmiro lawn and apply a flying ball to the Corinthians goalkeeper Cássio, in Santos.
These are, of course, cases of very different gravity, with different repercussions. But they are not disconnected episodes, point out researchers heard by the Sheet about the resurgence of violence in stadiums in Brazil.
Incidents have been reported since the beginning of the season – even in a youth match, in which there was a field invasion and a knife was found on the lawn – but they seem to have increased in recent weeks. Santos’ problem was not even the only one on Wednesday.
The match between Flamengo and Atlético Mineiro, in Rio de Janeiro, for the Copa do Brasil, had multiple occurrences. On the road, on the way to the game, Atletico fans fought among themselves, with four injured and a machete seized by the police. The bus of the alvinegra delegation was stoned on arrival at Maracanã – which had one of its sectors invaded by fans without tickets.
The duel between Santos and Corinthians, in Vila Belmiro, came to a halt because Santos fans threw flares in Cássio’s direction. There were explosions close to the player, also target of the flying attempt after the final whistle. According to Santos, who apologized to Corinthians, seven people were arrested and identified.
The game was played by a single crowd, as in all classics in São Paulo, on the recommendation of the São Paulo Public Ministry, followed by the FPF (São Paulo Football Federation). But the Military Police – which the day before had acted with truculence to prevent fans, many of them children, from having contact with Corinthians athletes in a hotel – could not control it.
“We cannot think of violence in football as disconnected from Brazilian society. We live in an increasingly violent society, both on the part of the social dynamics and on the part of the police authorities, who should ensure the safety of citizens”, summarizes Flávio de Campos, coordinator Ludens (Interdisciplinary Center for Studies on Soccer and Playful Modalities) at USP (University of São Paulo).
“In the last few weeks, we have experienced regrettable episodes of violence. I will remember two. The murder of the boy, a motorcyclist, in Sergipe, in a gas chamber inside a Federal Police vehicle, police officers killing a poor person simply for the perversity of killing. And, now, the murder of the PT militant, at his birthday party. Violence is widespread in society”, adds the researcher.
Campos also points out the responsibility of those who, in the political field, “stimulate, justify and applaud violence at all levels, against women, against the LGBT public, against opponents”. According to him, “this culture of violence to resolve differences at the base of the blow is linked to what we saw in Santos and Rio de Janeiro.”
Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda, a social science researcher at FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas), adopts a similar line of reasoning. He worries about the warlike environment established in the presidential race, with the vote scheduled for October, and the consequences of this temperature beyond the electoral scenario.
“It is important for us to think about what happened in the light of recent incidents from a political point of view. If we think about what happened in Foz do Iguaçu, we can think about how far we can go in figurative language, using expressions that can lead to in fatal incidents, as it happened. This has to do with the mood created for yesterday [quarta]”, it says.
Hollanda includes the protagonists of football among those responsible for transposing this heavy climate to sport. In the case of Flamengo x Atlético Mineiro, the dispute began with a 2-1 victory for Atlético in Belo Horizonte. Promising a turnaround in Rio de Janeiro, the red-black striker Gabigol said: “When they go there, they’ll see what pressure is and what hell is.”
The motto of “hell” was embraced by fans, who took banners with this inscription. After Flamengo’s 2-0 victory, which advanced to the quarterfinals, Gabigol himself displayed a poster with a roasted rooster, symbol of the rival. The phrase was: “Welcome to hell.”
“It’s all within a context that has been intensifying. It has to do with the responsibility of players and managers in this discussion about the hell that would be created in the match in Rio. football, which evidently meets a climate that is already full of rivalry”, says Hollanda.
The recurrence of cases of violence in football, of course, also has a lot to do with impunity. It is very rare that there are actually firm punishments for the people involved in the cases. The scenario is very different from that observed, for example, in England, which suffered from the so-called “hooligans” in the 1980s and resolved the issue with severe sentences and imprisonment.
“Violence in Brazilian football has grown over the years due to the deepening of violent social contexts in the country, impunity and the negligence of the authorities. The practices of violence in football have been growing and spreading in plain sight. […] and under the silence of the Brazilian State”, observe in an article Thiago Brandão, Mauricio Murad, Rachel Belmont and Roberto Ferreira dos Santos, physical activity scientists.
In Vila Belmiro, this materialized in an attempt at flying on Cássio. Unlike what had happened in the Copinha game in January, luckily for the player, there wasn’t a knife on the lawn.
“It’s not long before a tragedy happens”, observed the Corinthians goalkeeper.
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