Cases reopen debate on machismo culture in sport – 02/10/2023 – Sport

The conclusion of the Spanish Justice investigation into the case of Daniel Alves, 39, arrested since January 20 on charges of having raped a woman in a Barcelona nightclub, is still uncertain. But the athlete’s preventive detention, without the right to bail, has again raised the debate about acts of violence against women committed by famous soccer players.

The Bahian, who denies the rape, is not the first exponent of the sport investigated for an alleged crime of this nature. In January 2022, Robinho was convicted in the last instance of the Italian Justice for collective rape in 2013.

The attacker, who defended Milan ten years ago, also denies committing the crime. As the Brazilian Constitution prevents the extradition of its citizens, the former Santos player remains free, without serving his nine-year prison sentence.

In June 2016, striker Jobson, who gained national prominence with the Botafogo shirt, was arrested for rape of vulnerable and disclosure of child pornography. In September of that year, he won the right to be free after posting bail.

He was arrested again twice after that, for other crimes, such as being involved in a traffic accident that caused the death of a man and failing to comply with precautionary measures. As his trial for the rape charge has not yet been carried out, he left prison in April 2018. Awaiting the outcome of the case, he returned to football and has already worn the shirt of 11 clubs.

For researchers heard by the report, football is not just a backdrop in these cases. They are, above all, reflections of society, but the culture of the sport itself helps to explain acts of violence committed by players.

“Football was born masculine, it was Olympicd masculine, then it withdrew from the Olympic Games to be a masculine instance with the World Cup, in 1930”, contextualizes Katia Rubio, associate professor at the School of Physical Education and Sport of USP (University of São Paulo).

She recalls that women took decades to establish themselves in the sport, which, according to her, only happened from the 1980s onwards. “All female participation, not only in football but in all sports, was not granted, it was earned based on the fight.”

As a result, football has become “a space marked by a very hierarchical binary between men and women”, says Gustavo Andrada Bandeira, doctor in education and author of studies on masculinity and sport. “There is an understanding that men are worth more than women.”

Inequality is seen, for example, in the salaries of athletes, even when comparing elite players such as Neymar and Marta. In 2019, the French magazine France Football released a ranking of the five highest paid male and female soccer players in the 2018 season.

According to the list, Neymar received BRL 396 million in salaries (just behind Messi, BRL 563 million, and Cristiano Ronaldo, BRL 489 million), while Marta received BRL 1.47 million. The Brazilian was the fifth in the female ranking, led by the French Ada Hegerberg, with R$ 1.73 million.

For Bandeira, the value attributed to men and women in football accentuates sexist behavior and gives men the impression that they are above women.

“Some celebrity soccer players do not recognize that a woman may not be interested in being with or having sex with him. There is a mistaken understanding that there is always an unspoken yes”, he says.

For Roberta Negrini, vice president of diversity and inclusion at Sport Club do Recife, there are gaps in the training of young people. According to her, many do not have “an educational, family and psycho-emotional base and, therefore, are not prepared to deal with the financial empowerment” that sport provides.

She points out that the issue is not exclusive to sports, but recognizes that this is an emerging agenda among clubs. “It is at the base that we are going to contribute to the topic.”

As a rule, according to Gustavo Bandeira, the training of high-performance athletes takes place in very exclusive spaces, in “bubbles”, in which the valued aspects are, generally, virility and physical imposition.

In addition, the male figure is predominant among professionals in the field. Even women who are present in this environment are often treated as sexual objects, with labels such as “muse fan” and “beauty athlete”.

The fight against these stigmas and for gender equality has always been part of Silvana Gomes da Silva Trevisan’s routine, a social worker at the São Paulo Professional Athletes Union and also at Sport Clube São Bernardo. According to her, in these institutions, her technical knowledge is recognized, something that was not always the case in her life.

“They know my profile and support me, but 20 years ago I would hear: ‘Who do you think you are?’

Sports psychologist Eduardo Cillo, doctor in psychology from USP (University of São Paulo), says that the behavior described by Silvana is common in men from all areas. “Like artists, politicians and people who, in general, end up accumulating power.”

For them, “it’s as if more is allowed than for people who don’t have power”, adds Cillo, who is also the coordinator of sports psychology at the COB (Olympic Committee of Brazil).

Even with the increased presence of women in all areas, including football, machismo prevails, says psychologist Aritana Azevedo. “The cause of violence against women is not in football, but in the social construction that encourages and trivializes violence,” she says.

The search for a solution, in the view of some leaders, involves a broad structural work in society.

“The work has to be general. It has to be in schools, it has to be in families, the family is a central nucleus, and it can also be in clubs. Clubs can also work with their athletes in training with a more humane training” , says Marcelo Paz, president of Fortaleza.