Chosen by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) to be Minister of Sports, Ana Moser has in her curriculum, in addition to an Olympic medal, a recent past of dedication to management projects and public policies in the area.
It was this profile, say people in the sector, with reservation, that secured her for the position. She is seen with good eyes by NGOs, athletes and also by confederations, and the announcement should take place this week, along with the rest of the ministers of the future government.
One of the main challenges for the future minister will be to restore the portfolio to the status of a ministry – Sport was demoted to a special secretariat by Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
On the courts, Ana Moser won bronze at the Atlanta Olympics (1996) — the first Olympic medal for Brazilian women’s volleyball. She retired three years later and began to dedicate herself to social projects, especially the Instituto Esporte e Educação, which she founded, and more recently Athletes for Brazil, of which she is director.
She was a member of the sports work group in the Lula government transition team. Despite years of work in sports management and in the debate on public policies, Moser did little work within the State.
She was appointed director of the Olympic Center at Ibirapuera Park, within the structure of the Sports Secretariat of São Paulo, and was a member of the National Sports Council, of the Ministry of Sports, both positions not so central within the respective folders.
On the other hand, at the head of the NGO Atletas Pelo Brasil, in recent years she has been one of the articulators of civil society in favor of the General Sports Law and the National Sports Plan.
Both, as she highlighted in an interview with Sheet at the end of 2021, they are pillars for the redesign of sports public policy, together with the National Sports System.
“Brazilian sport has very little in terms of public structure. It resists, turns around and even expands due to the organization of civil society. Which is terrible, because only the public power is capable of creating structures on a national scale”, she said at the time.
As a member of the National Sports Council, she helped design the public policy project for sport based on these three pillars that she defends.
Moser will be the first Minister of Sports in a PT government that is not linked to a political party. Since the first Lula government, the portfolio has been occupied by members of the PT itself, the PC do B and has also been in the hands of the PRB (today, Republicans).
His performance history also indicates that Moser should try to change the profile of state investment in sport, say people in the area. On the other hand, having been an athlete, he should not neglect high performance.
During the PT governments, Brazil hosted the two main sporting events in the world, the World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016), and focused efforts, above all, on high performance.
A reflection of this, for example, is that the largest share of funds from the Sports Incentive Law is raised for income projects —currently, according to the federal government website, just over 50% of the total raised by the mechanism to date is for this rubric.
Since retiring from the courts, in 1999, Moser has been dedicating himself to the democratization of the sport, educational practice, inclusion and focused on health.
In 2001, she founded the Instituto Esporte e Educação, an organization that carries out projects aimed mainly at the low-income population. In 2005, in partnership with Unicef and the ESPN Brasil channel, it created the Caravana do Esporte, “a movement of action and social mobilization for the right of children to sport, leisure, education and culture”, as stated on the page of the project.
According to his institute, the initiative has indirectly assisted almost 3 million children between the ages of 7 and 14 in cities with a low HDI (human development index). Currently, there are 4,500 children and young people assisted per year, in three states, and 4,000 teachers.
According to Ricardo Leyser, former Minister of Sports, Moser was chosen for her “passion for the utopia of sport for all”.
“In the first moment, she will have to make a move to rebuild the ministry, and that will take some time. And I think that, as in any transition, she will have the challenge of maintaining the positive points while reorienting the portfolio’s policy. time, it’s time to see the results of public policies,” he said.
In addition to Ana, former basketball player Marta and senator Leila Barros (PDT-DF), also a former volleyball player, were also quoted for the portfolio.
“The three have a profile that combines technical capacity, sports legitimacy and social sensitivity”, stated Flávio de Campos, a sports researcher at USP and also a member of the transition group.
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