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er The people of Brazil celebrated when they learned that in the space of two years their B “In Brazil’s Dance with the Devil, Zirin’s at his best. . . .
al
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n country would host the world’s two largest sporting events: the World Cup in 2014 and the R It’s incisive, heartbreaking, important, and even funny.”
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©J Olympics in 2016. Now they are protesting in numbers the country hasn’t seen in decades. A —Jeremy Schaap, ESPN, author, Cinderella Man
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Relying on fieldwork from the favelas of Rio to the halls of power in Washington, DC, Dave “For years, FIFA and the Brazilian government have
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Zirin exposes how sports and politics have collided in spectacular fashion. One of the L failed to understand the complexity of the Brazilian
Boston Globe’s “Best Sports Books of 2014,” Brazil’s Dance with the Devil has been newly ’ populace, that it’s possible both to love soccer and to
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updated to assess the final tally of debt and displacement that accompanied the 2014 be outraged over the organization of the World Cup
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World Cup, eyewitness accounts of the militarized police crackdown, and new reporting on at the expense of the people. Dave Zirin . . . comes
the pre-Olympic plans furthering immiseration in cities across Brazil. A away with the truth of it all: that the brutal expense
N of these Mega-events isn’t worth the investment of
“Zirin’s hope is in his intention, and in the intention of many others, to understand and so much public money and historical memory.”
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remember that left unchecked, the greedy and hypocritical initiatives connected to these —Grant Wahl, senior writer, Sports Illustrated
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grand events threaten to destroy not only the lives of the poorest residents of the cities
involved, but the sports themselves.” W “A vision from abroad about our Brazil from inside.
—Boston Globe I It’s a vision at once critical, smart, truthful, and free
Dave Zirin is the sports editor for the Nation and the T
C H of prejudices, and not sparing any criticisms of his
M author of Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the “People think speaking truth to power is easy, but if it was easy everyone would do it. This T own country. . . . Enthusiastically recommended!”
Y Sports World Upside Down. Named one of UTNE book does it. . . . It speaks truth to the powers that be, from Brazil to the United States to H —Juca Kfouri, columnist, UOL Esporte
Reader’s “Fifty Visionaries Who Are Changing Our E DAVE ZIRIN
CM FIFA to the IOC. It hits you like an uppercut that rattles your brain and sets it straight. I
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World,” Zirin is a frequent guest on MSNBC, ESPN,
cannot recommend this book highly enough.” “Zirin has done his homework and fieldwork, consult-
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and Democracy Now! He hosts WPFW’s The Collision E
—John Carlos, 1968 Olympic medalist ing the classics and experts to bring together a fast-
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with Etan Thomas and has been called “the best V
paced, focused read for an international audience.”
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sportswriter in the United States” by Robert Lipsyte. “Dave Zirin is not just the radical brilliant sports critic but along with Naomi Klein the investi- I —Juliana Barbassa, former Rio de Janeiro
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gative journalist of our neoliberal era. He has figured out that sports operates at the nexus correspondent, Associated Press
of capitalism, race, class, sexuality, privatization, and of course spectacle. That’s why his
work is so important to so many of us.” “Readers will never again allow their love of sports to
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author, Africa Speaks, America Answers blind them to the repurposed political ends of big,
D international sporting events.”
“Brazil is a special country and Dave Zirin honors its people and history while mercilessly A —Nancy Hogshead-Makar, civil rights attorney,
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going after those who would undermine its people. This book is a remarkable mix of senior director of advocacy for the Women’s
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investigative sports journalism and insightful social history.” Sports Foundation, Olympic Gold medalist
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—Glenn Greenwald, author, No Place to Hide I
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N THE WORLD CUP,
Sports $17.95
THE OLYMPICS,
THE FIGHT
AND
Cover image: Demonstrators gather to celebrate the reversal of
a fare hike on public transportation in São Paulo, Brazil during
www.haymarketbooks.org FOR DEMOCRACY
the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup. (AP Photo/Nelson Antoine) UPDATED OLYMPICS EDITION
Brazil’s Dance
with the Devil
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Brazil’s Dance
with the Devil
The World Cup, the Olympics,
and the Fight for Democracy
Second Edition
Expanded and Revised
By Dave Zirin
Haymarket Books
Chicago, Illinois
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© 2016 Dave Zirin
Published in 2016 by
Haymarket Books
P.O. Box 180165
Chicago, IL 60618
773-583-7884
www.haymarketbooks.org
[email protected]
ISBN: 978-1-60846-589-7
Trade distribution:
In the US, Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, www.cbsd.com
In Canada, Publishers Group Canada, www.pgcbooks.ca
In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-uk.com
All other countries, Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com
This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foun-
dation and Wallace Action Fund.
Cover design by Ragina Johnson.
Printed in Canada by union labor.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Map of Brazil x
List of Abbreviations xi
Preface to the 2016 Edition xiii
Introduction to the 2016 Edition 1
Introduction Finding Michael Jackson in Rio 9
Brazil Is Not for Beginners
Chapter 1 Brazil: “A Country for Everyone” 19
Danger: Stampeding White Elephants
Priorities
Brazil and the Museum of Tomorrow
The Museum of the Slaves
The Maracanã and the Death of Crowds
Environment
Security
Chapter 2 “There Is No Sin Below the Equator” 55
Slavery in Brazil
The Beginning of the “Mosaic”
Rumblings of Independence
Brazil as a Free State
The Time of Vargas and the Military Dictatorship
Goodbye to All That: The End of the Dictatorship
Chapter 3 Oh, Lula! 83
Lula’s Rise
Negotiating Neoliberalism: Lula’s Foreign Policy
Lula’s Domestic Policy: Image and Reality
A Political Root Canal
The Election of Dilma
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Chapter 4 Futebol: The Journey from Daring to Fear 107
Soccer Comes to Brazil’s Shores
Garrincha and Pelé
The Cold Cool of Pelé
The Unity of Garrincha and Pelé
The Wisdom of Sócrates
Women and Soccer in Brazil
The Neoliberal Game
Chapter 5 Killing Santa 149
In the Beginning
Nazism, the Olympics, and the Birth of Hypernationalism
Don Juan Antonio
FIFA and the World Cup
Chapter 6 Neoliberal Trojan Horses and Sporting Shock Doctrines 167
Greece 2004
Beijing 2008
Vancouver 2010
South Africa 2010
London 2012
Sochi 2014
Qatar 2022
Chapter 7 Target Favelas 191
The Scramble for Rio
Struggling against Eviction in Vila Autódromo
The Port, Providência, and Maurício Hora
Conclusion “FIFA-Quality Schools” 225
The Resistance
The Real President
The Nobodies
Acknowledgments 237
Notes 239
Index 263
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To two mentors who passed away since the initial publication of
Brazil’s Dance with the Devil. The first was the Uruguayan master
Eduardo Galeano, whom I quote throughout the following pages.
Galeano taught us that even the most brutal history contains resistance
that resembles the lush vitality of epic poetry. Galeano also taught me
how sports can express the best and worst angels of our nature: how
it can be used as an instrument of exploitation while also wielded as
a weapon of hope. Then there was Mike Marqusee: the sportswriter,
rabble-rouser, and dear soul who revived Muhammad Ali for a
generation of radicals and had the time to speak with me when I had
nothing to say. I am forever in his debt.
To Michele, Sasha, and Jacob, the changemakers in my life.
And to the people of Brazil fighting for their future.
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Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.
—Sócrates, captain, 1982 Brazilian World Cup team
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