Lula’s son teams up with Bolsonarista on football team – 02/21/2024 – Power

RPE Parintins played a decisive game on Saturday night (17), in Rio Preto da Eva (AM), 85 km from Manaus. With a full stadium, playing at home, the team had the chance to win the semifinal of the first round of the Amazonense Championship and, thus, seek promotion to Series D of the Brazilian Championship. He missed three penalties in a row and swallowed the defeat in front of 3,000 fans.

The team owner, a South Korean businessman who operates in the Manaus Free Trade Zone, appeared calm on the edge of the field. The city’s mayor, a partner in the venture, watched the game in the crowd, drinking beer, wrapped in the “Tourão” flag. The most tense was the club’s football director: Luis Claudio Lula da Silva, 39, youngest son of President Lula (PT).

The score was 0-0 and Luis Claudio was walking in a zigzag pattern behind the bench. In decisive moments, like penalties, he disappeared from sight. He knew that beating the São Raimundo team would give projection to the club he helped create from scratch, with the possibility of promotion to Série D in case of a victory in the final of Barezão’s first round, the Campeonato Amazonense.

RPE Parintins, based in a city nestled in the Amazon rainforest (and which is not Parintins, the city of the boi-bumbá), was the way that Lula’s youngest found to return to the football market, after accusations of influence peddling in the wake from jet washing, being away from the field due to the PT crisis and acting (almost unwanted) as a parliamentary advisor in São Paulo.

To facilitate the emergence of the football team, in a state with no tradition in the area and far from large or medium-sized clubs, Luis Claudio allied himself with a right-wing businessman, with a history of opposition to the PT – including participating in protests on Avenida Paulista, in the height of pixulecos, the doll that simulated a prisoner Lula, and the calls for impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (PT).

The president’s youngest son also joined a Lula mayor from the interior of Amazonas, Anderson Sousa (União Brasil), who heads the City Hall of Rio Preto da Eva, a city of 25 thousand inhabitants. In September 2023, Sousa was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, in the wake of an operation by the Federal Police to investigate suspected bid fraud and embezzlement of resources in the municipality.

Luis Claudio began to live the reality of the Amazon, and divides himself between Amazonas and São Paulo. His rehabilitation in football coincides with the rehabilitation of his father, elected President of the Republic for a third term.

In an interview with Sheet, he admits that being the president’s son opens doors. He says he gives suggestions to his father and government ministers on issues related to his work in the Amazon region. And he claims to have resentment regarding the past of police offensives against his family. Luis Claudio attributes the death of his mother, Marisa Letícia, to Lava Jato. She died in 2017 after suffering a stroke.

Lula’s youngest son’s first idea was for the football team to be in Parintins, a city east of the Amazon. The lack of knowledge about the Amazon was so great that Luis Claudio only discovered later that the municipality can only be accessed by water –boat trips can take more than a day– or by air.

He then looked for a new city to host the club. Rio Preto da Eva is close to Manaus, and the two cities are connected by a state highway, although in a poor state of repair.

Senator Omar Aziz (PSD-AM) called Mayor Anderson Sousa and asked him to give special attention to Lula’s youngest son and businessman Sung Un Song, 62, owner of Digitron, a company that manufactures computer parts and which was attracted to Manaus, 27 years ago, due to the Free Zone.

Song owns the team. He was the one who hired Luis Claudio. The City of Rio Preto da Eva embarked on the project and accepted that the team would be called Parintins, without being in Parintins. The shirt even has the colors blue and red, the same as the rival oxen Caprichoso and Garantido. All Lula’s son’s idea.

A tax lawyer introduced Luis Claudio to Song, in 2021, the year in which the president’s son worked as an advisor to state deputy Emídio de Souza (PT), in São Paulo. Luis Claudio had already worked as an assistant to physical trainers in major São Paulo teams, in addition to having structured an American football league.

“I was looking for a football director, I liked his CV. But I didn’t know he was Lula’s son”, says Song. “When he told me, I gave up on hiring him.” The businessman claims to have regretted it afterwards. He made the hire and asked for discretion regarding the relationship.

Until the presidential contest, in October 2022, Luis Claudio went almost unnoticed in the city, in Manaus and in Amazonian football circles. After the election, he started to show himself more on social media and has been Lula’s son to everyone for over a year.

“I’m more right-wing. And I understood myself as a Bolsonarist. I went to protest against Dilma in Paulista, with pixuleco, that whole thing”, says the owner of Digitron. “Afterwards, I realized that Lula and Lulinha weren’t all they were cracked up to be.”

Song claims not to seek the president through his son. According to him, more political action, in defense of the Manaus Free Trade Zone, was carried out in the past. “The Lula government has always been pro-employment, in favor of industrialization. The previous government [de Jair Bolsonaro] was more favorable to the free market.”

Rio Preto da Eva City Hall appears among the sponsors of RPE Parintins, but, according to the mayor, there is no direct injection of money into the team. The municipal stadium was renovated, with support from businesspeople, and there was a transfer agreement to the club, according to Sousa.

Lula is a relatively frequent interlocutor, says the mayor, but not because of his son, but because of his role as leader of an association of municipalities. After the first round in 2022, Luis Claudio asked his father to record a video thanking the mayor for mobilizing in favor of the campaign, says Sousa. Lula won in Rio Preto da Eva with 52.6% of the votes.

Last September, the PF carried out an operation to combat alleged embezzlement of public resources and fraud in tenders in Rio Preto da Eva. For illegally carrying a firearm, the mayor was detained by the police. He was released after posting bail.

“This was all because of the purchase of an ambulance and Tamiflu at the time of the pandemic, worth R$220,000. The purchase was made following the recommendation of the ministry at the time. The lawyers are taking care of the process”, says the mayor.

Tamiflu is a medicine that combats the effects of the flu and has no proven effectiveness against Covid-19. During the pandemic, it was purchased on a large scale by the Bolsonaro government’s Ministry of Health.

Sousa claims to have regular possession of a firearm, as he is registered as a CAC (collector, sports shooter and hunter). “The pistol was in the car, and should have been at home, according to police.”

REHABILITATION IN FOOTBALL

For Luis Claudio, the boss’s Bolsonaro past or the PF investigation involving the mayor are not obstacles for the RPE Parintins project to move forward. The president’s youngest son sees the venture as a rehabilitation in football, after successive investigations by the PF and the MPF (Federal Public Ministry).

In 2015, the PF carried out a search and seizure warrant at a company owned by Luis Claudio in São Paulo, as part of Operation Zelotes, which investigated suspected influence peddling and payments of R$2.55 million to the company, which worked in sports marketing. .

Father and son became defendants in the Federal Court of DF. There were also quotes in statements from members of the construction company Odebrecht and former minister Antonio Palocci.

In March 2022, then minister Ricardo Lewandowski (STF) suspended the processing of Zelotes’ criminal action. The attribution of crimes was fanciful, according to defense arguments presented to Lewandowski, now Minister of Justice in the Lula government.

“All criminal charges have been dropped,” says Luis Claudio. “There are two administrative processes left. There were years of legal absurdities, Lula’s son is always a good fish, but he had no worries about being arrested or paying a fine. I haven’t looked at that anymore for two years.”

The president’s son argues that the Bolsonaro family, the target of several accusations in court, does not go through the same “media siege”. “Only when there are convictions in different instances.”

Inside the stadium, Luis Claudio was already harassed once, called the “son of a thief”. He was also harassed inside a pharmacy in Manaus, the city where Bolsonaro won 61.28% of the votes in 2022.

But the situation is different for the president’s youngest son. At the stadium in Rio Preto da Eva, on Saturday, he was frequently stopped for photos and conversations. Behind the scenes of the game, everything seemed to revolve around him.

RPE Parintins is a small team, with an average salary of R$6,000 to R$7,000 per player. The owner of Digitron says he currently injects less than R$1 million per year into the club. The funding is also carried out by other sponsoring companies. Nobody reveals Luis Claudio’s salary.

According to the city’s mayor, parliamentary amendments will guarantee the construction of a training center for the team. In the second round of Barezão, later this semester, RPE Parintins will have another chance to grab a place in Series D.