Blatter Fears “Invaders from Brazil”

By: Martha | November 27th, 2007

Ho ho no. FIFA President Sepp Blatter has found the real problem for international football, and it’s nothing to do with bankrupt FAs, England being crap, or the outrageously punishing World Cup qualifying road down with South and Central American nations have to travel. No, it’s Brazilians, specifically those who play abroad. According to Blatter, “If we don’t take care about the invaders from Brazil … then the next World Cups in 2014 and 2018 out of the 32 teams … we will have 16 full of Brazilian players.” Never descends into hyperbole, does he?

There is a long, long, long tradition in football of playing for national teams other than the ones to which you’re ethnically attached; for a while, FIFA even allowed players to turn out for more than one team at the senior level — Jose Altafini, for example, won the World Cup with Brazil in 1958, then played for Italy in 1960. And, while that’s no longer legal, there are players all over the world playing for adopted nations, from Freddie Adu (ethnically Ghanaian) playing for the US, to Alex (a dreaded Brazilian) play for Japan; further complicating matters are those with grandparents from the country for which they play, like Mauro Camoranesi who, though born and raised in Argentina, plays for Italy, the country from which his grandparents emigrated to South America.

Brazilians aren’t the only ones being adopted by new homelands in order to play at the international level, nor are they the only ones being courted by nations looking to improve their international prospects. So, if you consider foreigners (But how do you define them? Naturalized citizens? Anyone not born there? Those without at least one grandparent from the country in question?) in your national team a problem, I guess this is a bit one. But for Blatter to rage only against the inclusion of ethic Brazilians in other national teams is completely absurd, and just another sign of his need to bluster about something — anything — on a regular basis.

*There’s a related editorial in Portuguese sports paper Record today, in which the author whole-heartedly agrees wth Blatter, but extends his opposition to all foreigners in national teams of adopted home countries. Interestingly, he never once mentions Deco, Portugual’s resident Brazilian, by name, despite the fact that Deco was at the center of a firestorm of criticism — led by then-Portugal captain Luis Figo — when he was first picked. (Not surprisingly, the criticism quieted down considerably after he scored the winning goal against his home country in his first appearance for his adopted one.)

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Abby

True, only Brazilians count. Good thing, too, because that means Germany can keep playing Klose without fear of reprisal from Sepp. (and Podolski if he ever gets regular form back). I was really more responding to Bernd up there and his assertion that the Scandinavians are all "ethnically entrenched" in the country they play for...
Martha

Zlatan's Croatian ethnically but was born in Sweden, I think, Abby, so Blatter probably wouldn't kick HIM out. Well, that and the fact that he's not Brazilian.
Abby

Well, in this day and age nationalities in general aren't as ethnically entrenched as they were in the past. Particularly for younger people. Maybe my perspective is a little skewed as an American, and therefore not really ethnically entrenched anywhere, but nationality these days isn't entirely about ethnicity. And Sweden's got Zlatan, who's not 'ethnically' Swedish, is he?

I bet he's just mad at Eduardo da Silva being so useful in kicking out England. His wife is Croatian, though, isn't she?
Bernd

A team representing a country whose players are actually ethnically entrenched in that country is a rare occasion these days. The only ones that come to mind are Spain, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the Scandinavian countries. Germany has the Poles, Italy has the Argentines, Portugal has the Brazilians, England has the Carribean, Australia has players from all over world, and France has it's colonies. It's basically club football but on a much larger scale in both the corruption and the pay-off.
Martha

My guess, Diane, is that you've hit the nail on the head with option #3. It seems like Blatter can do and say pretty much anything he wants.
Diane

He's just bitter that the England squad isn't "full of Brazilians" and there's a tourny coming up that won't be filling FIFA coffers with its share of the England lbs that would otherwise have come pouring in next summer.

p.s. In any other job, wouldn't he have been fired -- and brought up on charges -- for those comments? Or is that just in the U.S.? Or is it another FIFA rules its own parallel universe situation?
Chris Murphy

bashing immigrants is so easy that even FIFA wants part of the action. That's okay, a nice bribe will make him shut up.