Clubs work on the theme of racism at the base to raise awareness among young people

Jair da Rosa dos Passos, known as Jairzão, shows pride when he recalls the clashes with Santos de Pelé. In the 1970s, the defender wearing the América shirt, from São José do Rio Preto (435 km from São Paulo), the defender he gained respect for the way he made life difficult for the King on the field.

At 74 years of age, he still remembers with enthusiasm his matches with the Santos shirt 10, as well as the referees’ deference to His Majesty. “When he fell, the judge said: ‘Mr Edson, are you all right?’

In Brazil, football was born and developed under deeply prejudiced roots. In its beginnings, the participation of the black athlete was inconceivable in an aristocratic modality. Times have changed, but the setting is still far from ideal.

Last Thursday (18th), Brusque, from Santa Catarina, regained the points it had lost in Serie B of the Brazilian Championship after a club manager uttered racist attacks on midfielder Celsinho, from Londrina, who is black.

In recent years, some Brazilian clubs have understood the need to face this problem and started to promote awareness lectures on the subject, in addition to working on welcoming measures from the base categories. Boards are increasingly investing in hiring professionals in the areas of education, psychology and social assistance.

“Debating social issues is of fundamental importance, regardless of whether they become professional athletes in the future or not, for them to adopt an anti-racist behavior”, says Ricardo Barros, social worker at Santos.

At Vila Belmiro, Barros has the mission of leading this work alongside psychologist Renato Santoro and educator Karla Patrícia, who monitors the routine of young people in schools. The club will set a date, probably during the school break, for teams in the lower categories to attend a lecture at the Luther King Institute, located on the coast of São Paulo.

Bahia, one of the clubs that has carried out the most campaigns to support social causes in recent years, created in 2014 in its social department, a group to deal specifically with the issue of racism. Since 2018, it has promoted the Base Black Awareness Week, with the support of education and nutrition professionals.

Annually, the event addresses issues related not only to sports, but also topics such as the insertion of black people in the labor market and their position in society.

“Our responsibility is to build restless citizens and athletes who know how to discern the crime of racism and racial injury, and who fight for their rights by becoming protagonists in society and their own history”, says psychologist Aline Castro, who coordinates the center Bahia social worker Adnaildes Santos and psychology intern Crislane Vieira.

The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) also claims to be doing homework with young people, under the leadership of educator Eliane Paim.

During the calls for the base selections, the professional conducts education on the importance of fighting prejudice through dynamics, conversation circles with athletes, movie screenings and reading tips.

“Our goal is to continue the comprehensive training of young athletes. We demand not only high performance, but also a critical and behavioral posture”, says the coordinator of the base categories of the selection, Branco, to the sheet.

“Pedagogical support is important because it helps our athletes in their school commitments and prepares them to represent the country, inserting them in the fights that the CBF embraces and believes in. And being anti-racist is one of them. There is no more room for any type of discrimination in football, whether by sex, gender, race, religion or social status,” adds Branco.

In partnership with the Observatory of Racial Discrimination in Football, Juventude, from Caxias do Sul, recently invited former player Tinga, with passages in Grêmio, Internacional, Cruzeiro, and Borussia Dortmund (ALE), to give a lecture.

After hanging up his boots, Tinga was one of the rare black leaders who worked for an elite club in the country – football manager at Cruzeiro until the end of 2017.

“The awareness of racism and other abhorrent prejudices is permanent at Juventude. In partnership with the Observatório de Discriminação Racial, for example, we have already carried out several actions”, says Fábio Pizzamiglio, vice president of administration and marketing at the club from Rio Grande do Sul.

At the Internacional, in addition to the orientation work, the board inserted a clause in the contracts signed with athletes -including the base categories- and other commercial partners in which it demands that they base their professional conduct “on the repudiation of the practice of any discriminatory or prejudiced acts resulting from of origin, color, gender, religion, social class, individual abilities or limitations”, says the passage, which provides for warning, suspension or termination in case of infraction.

“We are concerned and interested in growing more and more as an institution, bringing with great intensity projects aimed at inclusion and diversity”, says the president of Internacional, Alessandro Barcellos. “We understand that this is a trend in many organizations, and in football it would be no different.”