Romario confronted by roadblock in his bid to unlock CBF’s commercial secrets
BRASILIA: Brazil’s old football establishment appears to be raising obstacles to Romario’s attempt to dig into the relationship between the Brazilian confederation – and Ricardo Teixeira – and Nike.
Romario, former World Cup-winner now a socialist senator, heads a new parliamentary inquiry into the business dealings of the CBF, in particular during the years when it was led by Teixeira.
The latter relinquished the CBF presidency and his role on the FIFA executive committee when he absquatulated to Florida in early 2012.
Romario has submitted a formal request to the Chamber of Deputies to view all the documents unearthed by its inquiry in 2000 into the deal between the CBF and its long-time sportswear sponsor.
Not so simple.
Eduardo Cunha, the president of the Chamber from the Demoractic Movement party, has told Romario to be more specific.
Time consideration
The Chamber’s centre of information has estimated that it would take 75 days to copy all the documents contained in 215 case files and which would stretch for 21.5 metres. The files also include 62 VHS cassettes, 129 disks and 38 rolls of microfilm.
Cunha, in a formal letter, asked Romário to be more specific about which documents he wished to see so they could be digitised. That request would also have to assessed by a special commission for sensitive documents.
The original inquiry was abandoned without reaching a conclusion. It was headed by Aldo Rebelo, then a critic of Teixeira but later his friend before being appointed Sports Minister in the run-up to the World Cup staging.
Cunha’s response creates a major complication for Romario. Without seeing the documents he cannot know which ones to specify.
Teixeira’s successor as CBF president, Jose Maria Marin, is currently in detention in Switzerland contesting an extradition application from the United States in the FIFAGate scandal.
The current CBF president, Marco Polo del Nero, is a member of the FIFA exco. He is not expected the exco meeting in Zurich later this week for fear of arrest on a further US extradition warrant.
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