Teixeira back in town — but only to party and save daughter Joana from the sack
RIO DE JANEIRO: Ricardo Teixeira, the disgraced former Brazilian football supremo who landed the World Cup for the country in 2007, is back in Rio writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
However Teixeira, who returned to celebrate his forthcoming 67th birthday with family and friends and support under-pressure daughter Joana, will not be attending of matches.
Instead he will fly back to his exile home in Miami ahead of the Opening Match in Sao Paulo on Thursday.
Teixeira hosted a party at his luxury in Rio’s Pirau on Saturday which was attended by, among others, another daughter Antonia and her mother Ana Carolina – from whom Teixeira separated recently.
Both had flown down from Miami, where they also live, for the party.
Teixeira, former son-in-law of long-time FIFA president Joao Havelange, was dictatorial head of the Brazilian football confederation from 1989 until 2012 when he severed all his football connections and fled into exile in Miami under the weight of a string of financial and commercial scandals.
Bank account
In France earlier this week it emerged that Teixeira’s banking connections were being studied in a money-laundering investigation concerning a secret bank account he held in Monaco.
Teixeira has been reported as having used his influence to prevent the sacking of another daughter, Joana, from her role as executive director of the World Cup’s local organising committee.
On her Instagram account, she had written: “[I will not] wear black on any day of the games. I want the World Cup to go well. I will not jeer it, because whatever money has gone had been spent or stolen already.
“Any protests should have been much earlier. What I want the most is that whoever comes here sees a Brazil that knows how to be welcoming, to be friendly. Whoever comes here should want to return. I want to see Brazil at its most beautiful. My protest against the World Cup will be in the elections [later this year].
“Anyway, destroying what we have today will not change what needs to be done tomorrow. ”
Later she sought to excuse herself on the grounds of careless phraseology but the word “stolen” prompted high-level discussions about whether she should be dismissed.
After Teixeira’s intervention she was maintained in the role but with her powers significantly curtailed.
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