Search results

Brazilian sportswomen have arrived in the twenty-first century burdened with a heavy inheritance, which has been called the gendered twentieth century sporting legacy. In relation to football, this heritage includes not only gender and sexuality discrimination but all multifaceted obstacles to playing the sport, such as no access to facilities, equipment and funding. This chapter analyses the careers of three Brazilian women who played in a major tournament organised by the São Paulo Football Federation (FPF), the Paulistana, where orthodox-gendered practices and concepts prevailed to control the bodies of the players. This analysis considers aspects of socialisation and sporting elements in the lives of the participants, derived from informal conversations as well as structured interviews which were inductively framed. As such, the data were analysed by understanding the social division of the professional and corporal practices in society and the representations that permeate Brazilian society regarding the role of women in that society at that time, in the late 1990s. The chapter uses the micro-context of these players' biographies to show how women's football is embedded in macro-contexts of oppressive gender structures in Brazil and South America. The findings show that whilst conceived to be a tournament to promote women's football in Brazil, the 2001 championship was an attack against women's footballers and their human rights. The orthodox rigid gendered rules, which prevented many women players participation, transformed the tournament into a ‘circus’ that received criticism across the whole country, including in the National Parliament.

This paper discusses the evolving nature of the symbolic meaning of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Exploring the kratophanous power of soccer in Brazil, we seek to explain how the relationship that Brazilians had with the 2014 FIFA World Cup reflects profound changes in a mutating society that has deep emotional connections with soccer but at the same time has started to reject the misuse of public resources and struggles to see corruption as a fact of life.

The authors conducted a netnography on Facebook communities and on Instagram, reviewed documentaries and short films, as well as press articles on the subject. Data was collected both retrospectively and concurrently. Analysis used open coding, moving up from the emic meanings extracted from the texts to an etic account of the phenomena (Cherrier & Murray, 2007; Thompson, 1997; Thompson & Haytko, 1997).

We argue that the duality of the Brazilian culture and the kratophanous power of soccer help understand the evolving nature of the relationship Brazilians had with the 2014 FIFA World Cup. We sustain that soccer in Brazil is viewed both as a sport – representing democracy and the hope of social mobility – and as an industry – echoing dissatisfaction with the status quo. Even if ideologically opposed to what the event represented, consumers were bound by very strong cultural connections built around soccer as a sport, a national passion. This changing nature of feelings and attitudes echoes marketplace tensions of a country passing through a democratization maturity process and of a culture in which its citizens find it easier to attempt to be many things at the same time than to take a stand.

This research analyzes the role of social tensions and national passions in relation to a global industry (soccer) and a mega event (the FIFA World Cup). We have looked at the influence of macro cultural forces and tension forces in a sporting event as our findings cannot be understood outside the context of network-based power (Labrecque, vor dem Esche, Mathwick, Novak, & Hofacker, 2013) with Brazilians mobilizing the structure of social networks in favor of their contextual interests. The tense and dynamic political environment in which this research was conducted shed some light on why the #naovaitercopa changed its meaning overtime.

The context of this research contributes to the literature on boycotting (Kozinets & Handelman, 2004; Lee, Motion, & Conroy, 2009), considering that most previous studies had not extensively explored situations where protests arise, obtain significant engagement, yet end up being unsuccessful. We answers the call made by Izberk-Bilgin (2010) for understanding how and why consumer attitudes toward certain types of consumption may change overtime and we demonstrate how the FIFA World Cup possesses kratophanous power in Brazil, and how this characteristic, which is strongly rooted in local culture, contributed to the failure of the boycott.

The term ‘obrigatoriedade’ is a colloquial shorthand in Brazil for the policy incentivising South American clubs to open a women's division by making it a prerequisite for entry in the ever more lucrative male Copa Libertadores. The focus of this chapter is a balance of how the South American football federation CONMEBOL's flagship policy has impacted upon the gradual professionalisation of women's football in Brazil. On one hand, the policy has already caused a domino effect as a critical mass of clubs seek to imitate the few clubs who have already provided year-round contracts and conditions that could credibly be described as professional. However, there is a strong feeling that the delivery of the policy has left much to be desired. There are no contractual stipulations requiring clubs to offer professional conditions and from an early stage the practice of outsourcing women's football to another entity or club has sent out a clear message that certain clubs have begun by only paid lip-service to the policy rather than truly embracing the women's game. This chapter considers the future possibilities for the professionalisation of women's football in Brazil. Moreover, the plight of long-standing amateur clubs, who have tirelessly championed the women's game prior to the arrival of the larger clubs, is considered.

Purpose – To outline the arguments and consequent legislation that prohibited and then allowed alcohol consumption by fans in Brazilian sports arenas since 1996.

Design/methodology/approach – We present the social and political debates regarding alcohol consumption by sports fans having the Brazilian legislation as a starting point and using the multiple streams framework (Kingdon, 1995). We identify the problems, policies and politics streams on three phases: the prohibition of sale and consumption of alcohol in sport stadiums, the exceptional allowance for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and its consequences on state laws five years after the 2014 event.

Findings – Violence among football supporters was the focal event to approve laws prohibiting alcohol consumption in sports arenas. For the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the sport governing body demanded the opposite, so Brazil and some states approved an exception to their laws. Since then, states see an opportunity to allow the sale and consumption of alcohol in and around the stadiums, questioning the relationship between alcohol and violence. These state laws are under examination by the Supreme Court because they may counteract a national law.

Research limitations/implications – Public safety is the key justification to uphold the laws, but a lack of empirical data and research delimit the arguments on how beneficial alcohol prohibition is to suppress supporters' violence. Lawmakers and groups of interest may also include beer industry lobbying strategies and health-related issues as relevant variables in the debate, although they are not discussed in this chapter.