Ana Moser is a sure shot for the Ministry of Sports and it’s not just because she’s the first former athlete in the position since Pelé. It’s because she founded and presides over an institute called Sport and Education. There is no other reason for the existence of this folder than to bring sports practice to school, to combine knowledge of the body with that of the classroom.
The first person to open up this notion was my friend, master and next-door neighbor, Juca Kfouri. He was the first man invited to be Minister of Sport, by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Juca says —and FHC wrote— that he responded negatively to the invitation on the grounds that there was only one man whom João Havelange would respect, would not go beyond his limits and would not go directly to the President of the Republic: Pelé.
I remember the despair of Rita de Cássia Nevado, Ritinha, Juca’s secretary in the Playboy editorial office, not knowing what to say to the reporters, who asked why FHC was at the house of the director of Playboy and Placar, one morning in the spring of 1994 Rita denied all information about the meeting, until Juca asked her to always tell the truth.
Pelé became a minister and produced the law that ended the slavery of football players, and which, mistakenly, is attributed to the subservience of star players to businessmen. The player won his manumission. It’s a sin that football didn’t teach him what to do with his freedom, which caused the immediate change of master. The club left, the agent entered.
One more reason for Ana Moser to be the ideal minister. It combines sport and education.
An old Skank song says that, to abolish the slavery of the Brazilian caboclo, education on the one hand and money on the other. For the soccer star, they only gave the second option. To the Olympic athlete, often not even that.
Poor you if you think that money is worth more than culture.
There are reasons for having a Ministry of Sport in a country with 27 federations for each modality. It will be up to Ana Moser to determine sports policy. It can help develop high-performance athletes, but the priority is to spread the practice across the country. You don’t make a cultured people in sports by bringing the biggest events, a misconception of Lula’s early years.
Development comes from daily exercise. If 207 million inhabitants have the sport in their daily lives, there will be thousands of champions. Even more so if they don’t starve.
This will be the mission of Ana Moser’s briefcase.
Football is also an Olympic sport.
But, in this case, there will be an important role for President Lula.
Like Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s right-wing Prime Minister, she was convinced that football could create jobs, wealth and taxes, and allowed an effort to be made to end the international shame of hooligans and turn it into British pride. of the Premier League, Brazil needs the same movement.
In this case, contrary to what Juca Kfouri said to Fernando Henrique Cardoso, it is not João Havelange who needs to run over the minister in order to speak with the president. It is the president who needs to, together with the minister, tell the CBF that he no longer accepts Brazil so lethargic in such a strategic matter.
Sport and education will go hand in hand with Ana Moser.
Football, the president’s passion, needs to put an end to politics and can once again become national pride.
The country of football must be reborn.
The end of the year is always one of hope. Let it be from the Ministry of Ana Moser, Sports and Education.
As a seasoned news journalist, I bring a wealth of experience to the field. I’ve worked with world-renowned news organizations, honing my skills as a writer and reporter. Currently, I write for the sports section at News Bulletin 247, where I bring a unique perspective to every story.
