The reporter reported coldlyThe year 2024 marks the 110th anniversary of the founding of the Brazilian Football Federation and the first international match of the Brazilian national team, but Brazilian fans are facing an unprecedented catastrophe in the kingdom of football – the Brazilian Court of Justice ruled on December 7, 2023 to remove the president of the Brazilian Football Federation, Ednaldo, in a typical administrative measure to interfere with the work of the Football Federation, so Brazilian football may or suffer a global ban from FIFA.
FIFA has said it will send a special investigation team to Brazil in early January to communicate and coordinate. If the final coordination fails and the ban is reached, it means that Brazilian football will not participate in national team competitions such as the Copa America and the World Cup, as well as international club competitions such as the Club World Cup and the Copa Libertadores.
Brazil, which is widely regarded as the kingdom of football, is undoubtedly facing the embarrassment of missing international competitions in such a way, which is undoubtedly an unprecedented scandal. Behind the scandal is the result of a long and intricate power struggle in Brazilian football. From Havelange to Teixeira to the present day, the struggle for power and corruption scandals have never been far from the highest governing body of Brazilian football. FIFA's ban warning has completely put the dark side of the Brazilian Football Federation to the fullest. Brazil** and fans are aware that this is the inevitable result of years of scandals in the Brazilian Football Federation, and that the kingdom of football must change.
The dismissal of the president of the Brazilian Football Federation by the court, and the appointment of an interim president by the court to complete the election of the president within a specified date, is a typical "third party interference in the affairs of the Football Federation". Brazil, a 100-year-old five-time World Cup winner, should not have made such a low-level mistake – because it has always been FIFA's rule red line to strictly prohibit third parties from interfering in the affairs of football's governing body – but the Brazilian Football Federation's giants are no longer in the driver's seat for power struggles.
This fight stems from the 2017 Brazilian Football Federation Congress. In the absence of 40 clubs in the first and second divisions, the congress adopted the rules on the weight of votes for the election of the president of the Football Association. The 27 state football federations and the Federal Capital Territory (FCD) have a weight of 3, with the Brazilian First Division and Brazilian second division clubs having 2 and 1 respectively. However, due to the absence of the Brazilian first division and the second division club, this decision is actually a violation of Brazilian sports law. At the time, the Rio State prosecutor questioned it, but the "old score" has not been cleared since then.
In March 2022, Ednaldo, the interim president of the Brazilian Football Federation at the time, signed an out-of-court settlement agreement with the court in order to bring the presidential election, which had been delayed for nine months, to end as soon as possible. He promised that the election would be held with the votes of the Brazilian League and Brazilian B clubs, and that the distribution of votes would be discussed after the election. At that time, 40 clubs in the Brazilian and second divisions agreed to vote, and Ednaldo was elected president of the Football Association as the sole candidate with this commitment.
However, Ednaldo's competitor, Fei Ruo, objected at the time to what he believed to be a private agreement between Ednado and prosecutors. Although Ednaardo received 26 votes from 27 state football federations, only the Alagoas Football Federation, which is chaired by Ferro's son, opposed it, and Ferro insisted on taking the dispute to court. Ferro's tireless appeal was largely due to Ednaldo's "betrayal", when the two were allies when they were both vice presidents of the Brazilian Football Federation, and eventually turned against each other for the presidency.
Of course, Fei Ruo's recourse to court is by no means the only reaction force facing the Brazilian Football Federation. After Ednaldo took office, he extensively abolished the sponsorship contract signed by the former chairman and fired the former chairman's cronies in the Football Association, which also provoked a strong response from the forces of former chairman Teixeira and Del Nero. In the end, the Brazilian court ruled that the out-of-court settlement agreement of that year was invalid, which led to the "catastrophe" of Brazilian football.
Brazilian football tradition divides spheres of influence based on football history, population and economic strength, with the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro being the strongest, followed by the three southern states led by Gremio and Discovery Harbour International, and Minas Gerais, led by Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro. The states of the northeastern Brazil, northern and western inland highlands are the weakest. The states of Rio and São Paulo have long controlled the Brazilian Football Federation, and Havelange, which established Brazilian football's position in the world, came from Rio, and Teixeira, the promoter of the commercialization of modern Brazilian football, is Havelange's son-in-law. His successors, Marin, Del Nero and Caboquero, are all from São Paulo, and Ednaaldo, who was elected in March 2022, is from the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil.
Although he also hails from the weak northeastern part of Brazil, he served as vice-president during the Del Neiro and Caboquero eras, where he had close ties to his predecessors. The states of Rio and São Paulo remain firmly in the grip of Brazilian football, so neither of them is worried about being banned by FIFA. After all, since the beginning of the Havelange era, Brazilians have had an extraordinary say in FIFA. The main purpose of the incident is to get Ednaldo** to support ** people from Rio or São Paulo states to come to power.
After FIFA and LINK's explicit warning to the Brazilian Football Federation, Ednaardo had tried to negotiate with opposition candidates. He said that he would only run for vice president, and form a campaign combination of chairman and vice chairman with the opposition to ensure that he could get the support of more than half of the football associations of the 27 states and the Federal Capital Territory to end the crisis as soon as possible. However, Bastos, the vice president of the Brazilian Football Federation and the president of the São Paulo State Football Federation, did not accept it, and even claimed that he had the support of 30 Brazilian and Brazilian second division clubs and seven state football associations, and did not need to cooperate with the general trend of Ednaardo. The other candidate, who is also a former vice president of the Brazilian Football Federation and a former ally of Ednaardo, is equally reluctant to form an alliance with his former friend, who has torn his face.
Optimistically, the eventual ban of Brazilian football will not really happen. With Ednardo's exit, the other candidates only need to reach an agreement with the FIFA delegation to get through. But this does not mean the end of the power struggle of the Brazilian Football Federation, after all, behind the power struggle is driven by interests. Ednaardo's previous five Brazilian football soccer federations have been sacked for corruption and other scandals, and the results of Brazilian football have deteriorated. Over the years, Brazilian football has suffered from this power struggle and corruption, and internal friction has led to too much waste of resources and talent.
The most regrettable thing is that the power struggle of the Brazilian Football Federation will continue in the future. Both Pele and Romario tried to overhaul the Brazilian Football Federation, but it was difficult to change the status quo with any individual effort.