Ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup it is worth taking a look at just how dominant football is on Brazil’s sporting scene. By far the most popular and played sport in the country, football is also a key part of Brazilian culture, with just a small portion of the population not involved with it in some way or another. The game is strong at all levels and is played in various formats, some of which were invented in Brazil, including FUTSAL and beach soccer.
The national team, known simply as ‘the seleção’ (the selection), has won the World Cup a record five times, in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002 and is the only team to have qualified for every edition. Over 10,000 Brazilians now play professionally all over the world.
Domestically, the sport’s governing body is the Brazilian Football Confederation, run by Ricardo Teixeira, who is also the head of the local 2014 World Cup organising committee. There are over 29 thousand registered clubs incorporating 2.1 million players, although estimates are that another 11+ million unregistered players compete on a regular basis. There are over 5,000 professional matches per year across more than 100 annual competitions, with over 61,000 registered referees.
Despite these impressive numbers and the country’s dominance on the playing field, the majority of Brazilian professional clubs are well below the standards of equivalent sport teams from Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, in terms of organisation, operations and business practices. Even the top 5-10 clubs from the premier league (the Brasileirão) do not reach the level of professionalism nor have the cutting edge approaches taken for granted in most Australian sporting competitions, despite the fact that Brazilian football has been professional for more than 70 years,.
A good example of this is the state of Brazilian football stadia, which are generally old and in poor condition, lacking key modern facilities such as VIP areas, high quality eating outlets and shops, and require significant overhauls just to reach basic standards expected in other countries.
Thankfully, much needed development is now speeding up spurred on largely by the 2014 Cup and its promise of significantly upgraded FIFA-approved facilities right across the country.