Fifa favouritism takes gloss off Brazil

08 July 2014 - 15:58 By MARC STRYDOM
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REMEMBER HIS NEYM: Brazilian striker Neymar, right, celebrates the first of his two goals in Brazil's 3-1 win over Croatia in the tournament opener at the Corinthians Arena in Sao Paulo.
REMEMBER HIS NEYM: Brazilian striker Neymar, right, celebrates the first of his two goals in Brazil's 3-1 win over Croatia in the tournament opener at the Corinthians Arena in Sao Paulo.
Image: Picture: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP PHOTO

In Fifa's cartoon world only Brazil can win this World Cup.

The prospect of watching the Selecao over the past three weeks has diminished to the point of being as exciting as dragging oneself out of bed on a freezing Johannesburg morning to go to work.

There can, of course, be no direct correlation between what seems the world governing body's seemingly open desire that the hosts win this World Cup, and the home decisions that have continued to go Brazil's way.

Fifa's Disneyland world view in those ad-break cartoons brought  bile to the back of the throat when the tournament started and have only become more nauseating with their inevitable repetition. Sepp Blatter's philanthropic non-profit organisation spreading peace and happiness to football-loving street urchins across the planet, with the World Cup its tool.

Luckily, Brazilians were never gullible enough to swallow that bad joke — particularly not those forcibly removed from favelas, or shot at and beaten while protesting the billions their government has spent, and the tax-free benefits granted to Fifa.

And yet a decidedly white and middle class-looking support base has of course backed their team, one that unfortunately must have reached a new low in aesthetic and skill qualities for a side that won the adoration of the world for its beautiful football in the 1950s to 1980s.

For Fifa, a Brazil victory surely would be the best result. It would damp down the protests and controversy that have  surrounded the tournament. It would deflect attention from the bribery scandal gaining momentum over another bad joke — that of awarding the World Cup to Qatar in 2022.

Remember how in the 1990s Blatter was set on enlarging the size of the goalposts? His belief was that more goals would make the game more exciting. It belied a seeming complete lack of understanding of the nature of the sport that the Fifa president never quite clicked that it was the wonderment of the skill level it took to score from long range into goalposts of the tried and tested size that was attraction.

Fifa loves a script. To the body, Brazil winning in 2014 would go to the script. You get the sense if Fifa actually could sit in a boardroom and decide a winner before the tournament, it would. Yet it's this same lack of understanding for the attraction of the tournament it oversee that boggles the mind. It's the very fact that the World Cup never ... ever … ever, goes to script that has made it the beautiful, emotional, magical four-yearly event it is. Cartoons go to script. The World Cup is real.

So tonight, when Mexican referee Marco Rodriguez, who missed Luis Suarez's bite on Giorgio Chiellini in the group stages, takes charge of Brazil 's semifinal again Germany, perhaps we should not be too surprised to see a few home decisions going the Neymar-less Selecao's way.

Personally, I'll be rooting for Die Mannschaft in this one, even though I started the tournament supporting Brazil. Sorry “Big Phil” Scolari and co. This team might be called Brazil and have the famous yellow and green colours. But they're not really Brazil in any other way.

Brazil have been one of the dirtier teams of this World Cup, and getting away with it. They have also been diving more than perhaps any other team, and not just getting away with it, but, inexcusably, profiting from it.

And it's hard to support a side when you know you're being joined as a fellow fan by Fifa. Yep, no, just cannot see that happening.

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