In Brazil, Miranda is a familiar figure: the populist.
Despite advances toward democracy, his archetype flourishes. These unabashed crooks have no compunction about pocketing money devoted to school lunch programs and steering massive contracts to their family business. But the populists have mastered a few good tricks that make them popular: While they steal for themselves, they also know how to steal for their constituents, pushing money into ostentatious public works projects. It’s a style that has been reduced to a common aphorism used to justify support for them,
“He steals but he makes.”
Miranda enters the press conference. He wears a gold necklace. He has well-oiled hair. One of his longtime critics tells me that about twenty years ago he was a beautiful man. While the beauty may have faded, he still carries himself as if displaying his specimen. Even while Petkovic responds to questions, Miranda
demands attention. He sits down in a chair and leans back, proudly exhibiting his corpulence. During the press conference, he smokes a sizeable cigar, rolling it between his fingers as he takes long, hard pu¤s. It becomes impossible not to stare.
One of the defining characteristics of the Brazilian populist is his pugilism. In a sense, their appeal depends on being perceived as embattled rebels, painting their accusers as uncaring elites. Miranda likes a good fight, too. When Rio’s evangelical governor Anthony Garotinho canceled a Vasco match after its stadium disaster, Miranda called him a “weak-kneed” “fag-got” “who sat there o¤ering false prayers to Jesus.”
After a referee sent o¤ three Vasco players in a 1999
game, Miranda stormed onto the field, leading a stam-pede of his security entourage. Before Miranda could slug the referee, police intervened.
During the Petkovic press conference, Miranda has no compunction about summarily interrupting journalists. “That’s a stupid question,” he says repeatedly. HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE SURVIVAL OF THE TOP HATS
Miranda moves a hand in a circular motion, the same one used by a coach to signal a change of players. Fearful perhaps of one of Miranda’s verbal rampages, the journalists comply. By the time Miranda finishes his press conference and sits down to talk, I’m a bit fearful too.
I’ve met many fans of Vasco da Gama, sensible people who disdain corruption but adore Miranda. “He may be a bastard, but he’s my bastard” is the classic refrain. Like most strongmen, he can’t distinguish between the club’s interest and his own—the father figure protecting Vasco from the slings and arrows of a wicked world. He’s especially hard on the foreign investors, whom he accuses of trying to destroy his club.
“All of a sudden, foreign investors came here and they tried to change this into a thing that they call business.
Due to the cultural practices that we have here, they faced several diªculties. Because this approach was not the right one. They came with an objective: Let’s take care of the bottom line. Business is that. But that way simply doesn’t work here. There are local practices that must be observed. They do know business but they know nothing about our culture, about our local characteristics.”
This is highly disingenuous, to say the least.
Miranda cut the deal with NationsBank, inviting them into his club. The bank never had anywhere the influence over the club that he alleges. But his use of this rhetoric is incontestably masterful. He’s maintained his political base for so long because he’s tapped into a powerful line of argument.
Sitting across a conference room table, twirling in his chair, Miranda tells me, “Vasco’s a club of immigrants. It was founded by Portuguese and Brazilians. And Vasco’s the only club that has some history. Vasco had the first black player in history. Football was practiced by elites. This is the only club where the associates bought every inch of land with no help from the government. None. It’s a pioneer club.” Miranda argues that the multinationals will inevitably eviscerate these traditions. The foreign investors will bring in guys
“who barely speak Portuguese.” In the interest of profit, the foreign investors will try to market the clubs to the widest possible audience. At Palmeiras, the Italian multinational Parmalat changed the team colors. At Corinthians and Flamengo, the foreign investors sold star players to hated cross-town rivals—previously an unthinkable act. Everywhere they went they bragged about their marketing plans. Miranda is trying to argue that foreigners created the impression that clubs are just businesses, not repositories of tradition and superior morality. Miranda’s genius was that he only began making these anti-globalization arguments after he robbed the foreign investors blind.
With the departure of foreign investors, Miranda doesn’t have any compelling scapegoat that he can flog to distract from his own failings. He campaigns for reelection in the shadow of an atrocious season. Now he doesn’t watch games from the honor tribunal, a box at midfield where team presidents traditionally sit. He watches from his own oªce, which overlooks the pitch, behind dark glass.
Just after visiting with Miranda, I met with an aging ex-Olympic volleyball player named Fernandão. He leads the underground anti-Miranda group, the
Moviemento Unido Vascainos. It’s underground, because HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE SURVIVAL OF THE TOP HATS
Miranda has thrown Fernandão and his friends out of the club. Today, they buy anti-Miranda billboards near São Januario. They hand out leaflets to Vascainos on their way to watch games at the stadium. Fernandão tells me that the wealth from the NationsBank deal has made Miranda “drunk with power.”
A few months later, Fernandão’s assessment is borne out. Miranda shows up at the polls with two armed bodyguards. He insists on cutting in front of long lines of voters. Along the way, he pauses to verbally assault a woman reporter. It was too much, even for supporters of Vasco. At the polling place, a revolt begins. Voters start chanting “ladrão,” thief. By the end of the day, the unthinkable had happened. Miranda had lost, not just his seat in congress, but the parliamentary immunity that came with the seat. The federal prosecutors have been waiting for
