Graham Kelly: Brazilian dream descends into a 'den of crime and dishonesty'

Today, the team who have been at every football World Cup and who more than any other have come to symbolise the beautiful game, begin their challenge to become winners for the fifth time. Yet Brazil suffered an unprecedented six defeats before a 3-0 victory over Venezuela sealed their passage to the East, and, despite facing a comparatively easy route to the quarter-finals, they are not widely fancied.

Their coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, deploys a pragmatic 3-5-2 formation, contrary to the Brazilian tradition of a flat back four, but the weight of expectation bears more than unusually heavily on his team as they take the field in Ulsan against Turkey today. That they will be without their captain, Emerson, who was ruled out of the finals yesterday after dislocating a shoulder, merely adds to the sense of crisis.

Since Brazil performed so abjectly in the final against France in Paris four years ago, after their striker Ronaldo suffered his mysterious illness on the eve of the match, the whole administration of Brazilian football has been laid bare in a succession of parliamentary hearings at which allegations of deep-seated corruption have been made.

Central to the inquiry had been unease about the 10-year, $160m sponsorship agreement signed by the Brazilian Football Confederation with the sports goods company Nike in 1996.

The Confederation president, Ricardo Teixeira, an ally of Fifa president Sepp Blatter stalled before releasing details of the deal, but it eventually emerged that Nike did, in fact, have the right to organise up to 50 friendly international matches around the world, each involving eight first-choice players, although there was no proof that pressure from the sponsor played any direct part in Ronaldo's illness. While the money flowing into the Confederation vastly increased, as with the Fifa accounts in Zurich more recently, there seems to have been little real tracking of how it was being applied.

Powerful football club chairmen in Brazil found that, as politicians were immune from prosecution for criminality, it was useful to harness the popularity of football in order to get themselves elected to parliament.

Clubs could be placed in leagues arbitrarily, based entirely on lobbying, and when Joao Havelange headed Fifa(and his daughter was married to Ricardo Teixeira) Brazilian football was allowed to conduct countless experiments with the laws of the game. They had time-outs, two referees and a white foam spray to indicate where a free-kick should be taken from and where the defensive wall should retire to. (I understand the foam disappeared after a few minutes, as did the grass sometimes). Draws were replaced by penalty shoot-outs and goalless matches were awarded no points.

After months of hearings,which often descended into farce – for example, when deputies solemnly considered whether Ronaldo should have been marking Zidane when he scored – two parliamentary reports were eventually produced, Teixeira having avoided his subpoena by means of a doctor's note.

There was much evidence of forged birth certificates for players, as some clubs exist merely to farm out players rather than make real progress in the football pyramid, such as it is. By and large, it is a few club owners and agents who make money out of developing players and selling them on.

Until the parliamentary inquiry the powerful club chairmen were inviolable. Nobody questioned what they did. Teixeira himself was completely open about buying power and putting relatives in positions of influence.

The football deputies successfully talked the first report out, but the more powerful senate concluded that the Confederation was a "den of crime, disorganisation, dishonesty, anarchy, and incompetence".

While the team was struggling to qualify for South Korea and Japan, the public mood was shifting and it was becoming clear that things had to change; the deputies voted to end their parliamentary immunity, some of the club chairmen opposing.

Pele, who as Minister for Sport some years ago tried to introduce legislation ensuring more transparency, has enjoyed a somewhat chequered relationship with Teixeira. However, since he is now backing Blatter, one must assume that the truce he called with the CBF president in February last year still holds. Certainly, for Pele to call off his criticisms was a major blow to the campaigners for more democracy in Brazilian football.

A likely starter today is the former Middlesbrough playmaker Juninho, restored to fitness after a broken ankle caused him to miss the last World Cup. He will be crucial in bringing Ronaldo and Rivaldo into the play and releasing the attacking wing-backs Cafu and Roberto Carlos down the flanks.

After the first eight matches, the 2002 World Cup is wonderfully wide open. A word of congratulation to the referees, who have handled the games firmly, but with considerable sensitivity, particularly Ali Bujsaim, of the United Arab Emirates, who opened proceedings with the France v Senegal upset and a smile on his face throughout. He was up with play, up to the job, and it augured well for the rest of the tournament.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com