As the coronavirus disease continues to cause havoc in Brazil, football writer Tim Vickery joined Off The Ball to discuss Jair Bolsonaro's handling of the crisis and what it means for the resumption of sport in the country.
While countries across the world contend with the challenges posed by the uncertain spread of Covid-19, the government of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has performed with alarming ineptitude.
As a conditional form of football returns in the likes of Germany, Tim Vickery, a Brazilian-based football writer, explained on Wednesday's Off The Ball why the sight of such developments in Europe has served to complicate further things in Brazil.
"Watching what is happening in Europe is having a negative effect," he explained. "People see football starting back in and think, 'Well, why can't we do that?' There is an easy answer to that which is that the numbers in Brazil are still going up."
Eighteen-months into his first term as President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of the US President Donald Trump, has acted with reckless abandon in his handling of the crisis at a central level. As Vickery remarked: "I think what has happened in Brazil over the last couple of months will live long in the annals of human incompetence."
It is expected that the official death toll in Brazil will reach in excess of 25,000 in the coming days. Rising exponentially with no sign of a halt in sight, the country has adopted few of the measures that have become commonplace elsewhere.
"They are the most extraordinary collection of lunatics you can imagine," he remarked of Bolsonaro and his cabinet. "It could weaken him if the country becomes an international outcast and it is going that way. If even his ally Donald Trump will put the knife in and stop people from Brazil travelling to the United States, you wonder at what point this means less money for the business people and moves to try and get rid of him."
Nevertheless, as a significant portion of the population continues to follow Bolsonaro's line and reject preventative protocol, there are hopes that football will soon return.
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"Brazil's football calendar is very complicated," prefaced Vickery. "The first few months of the year are devoted to the state championships; one for each of the 27 states. In theory then, by early May the national championship starts.
"When we paused in mid-March, we were coming toward the end of the state championships. Those state federations don't want to be forgotten because this is where they get their money. There are strong attempts in Rio to get football up and running, however, but it is becoming nasty.
"Last week, the President of Flamengo, the current national and continental champions with the biggest base of supporters in the country, together with the President of Vasco De Gama, went to meet with Bolsonaro to try and get his help as he is on record saying that he wants football back as soon as possible."
A demonstration of how the human element in all this is being overlooked came recently by way of a tragedy that hit one of the clubs in question.
"Three weeks ago," explained Vickery, "Jorginho, Flamengo's massage therapist since 1980, died from the coronavirus. He had been on the backroom team of Brazil's World Cup win in 2002 and even his death hasn't put the break on."
Notably, while some clubs remain adamant that football should return immediately, Botafogo, another of Rio's leading clubs decried such a plan as "tantamount to homicide."
You can watch back Tim Vickery on Off The Ball here.
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