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.)