On the afternoon of last Friday (23), the Gas players (Grêmio Atlético Sampaio) were the only occupants of the FRF building (Roraimense Federation of). Two -time state champions, they clustered in the seats of the José Gama Xaud auditorium on the first floor, to watch videos from Manaus, an opponent that would face the next day by the Brazilian’s (fourth division) series.
The new headquarters, inaugurated at the beginning of last year in the Aparecida neighborhood, destroys the level of local football, one of the most indigent in the country. The name of the auditorium honors the top hat that commands the federation as sovereign: Zeca Xaud, as it is known. He is in power almost uninterrupted in the 51th anniversary of the entity founded in 1974, except in small intervals. There are no top hat in the country as old as he.
In five decades, Xaud and Roraimense football remained parked: he in office, receiving monthly tables, and local clubs in the country’s tail. Roraima was the last state to professionalize his football in 1995. In the ranking of CBF federations, he always held the last positions. Never had a team in the Brazilian series A and B.
In 2001, during the congress, Xaud defaulted a rosary of complaints, attributing the shortage of Roraimense football to the lack of government support and predicted: “I have for me that, another three years, and the federations will disappear. And I am adept at this idea. Today, the clubs are already going to Globo, SBT, the federations and the CBF, it is one, for me evolution.”
He took a decomposition of Deputy Jurandil Juarez, who commanded the session. “You had the petulance of not forwarding any document to a CPI. Five years ago has no documentation to the IRS, and still has the courage to come here and say that this is the fault of the government.”
In 2014, one showed that professionalization did not exist in practice. Players had to resort to other jobs, and stadiums were still empty despite free tickets.
Two years ago, in 2023, an elderly Zeca Xaud – today is 80 years old and health problems – transmitted informally to his son to manage the FRF management. Earlier this year, the heir was elected to take over as president, but only from 2027.
Then came the opportunity of life, 41 -year -old, to be the next president of the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) after. Xaud Filho is a single candidate and, despite the boycott of the biggest clubs to the election, will be elected this Sunday (25), because, by the CBF rules, the vote of the federations weighs the most and decides the stop.
Since then, among many questions emerged in the strange transition of power ongoing at the billionaire confederation responsible for the Brazilian team and the main championships in the country, perhaps the most intriguing is: why the chosen one was xud, with little experience in the area, from a tiny state in football and son of a top hat that symbolizes the delay in conducting the sport?
Although state clubs have praised local football advances since Samir took over the federation’s management, the answer is not in Roraima, but in the notary culture with which the CBF is conducted.
“Rubens Lopes [presidente da Federação do RJ] Play that we are like a samba school. There are several plots, everyone fights, fights, but when you choose the plot, the whole samba school sings the same samba, “says Evandro Carvalho, president of the Pernambuco Federation.
Ally of Ednaldo, Carvalho struggled for the maintenance of the former president, then wanted to support Reinaldo Carneiro Bastos-from Federation Paulista, who tried to launch himself, unsuccessfully-and finally supported Xaud.
It is an environment that critics, considering by the running record of recent decades -all presidents have wrapped wrapped and varied misleading -prefer to compare the mafia, but of course this is not the term chosen by its members.
An influential hat in the transition says that the CBF follows the logic of a club or cooperatives, unions or employers federations: a closed environment in which no one outside comes in or whistle.
The partners have defined that, to try to cast the moldy image of the CBF, he was able to elect someone from the “new generation” – dirty speaking. In closed meetings, they pinned three names: Ricardo Gluck Paul (Pará), Luciano Hocsman (Rio Grande do Sul) and Xaud, all forties in a club full of seventies.
Roraimense Zebra imposed on the conversation. Started in politics – made by the MDB, has already ran for state deputy and federal deputy, without success – is defined as courteous and open to dialogue.
“He is a very affable, very attentive guy, I think he has won a space there and worked a little as a balance,” says former Senator Romero Jucá, one of the groomsmen of the last candidacy, in 2022 –xud is the first alternate to the House of Representatives.
“Let’s change the mindset, but jointly, because it was this freedom that Samir proposed us, of a decentralized administration. Because unfortunately Ednaldo’s administration was very centralized. Even with the acceptance he had, it was not a healthy environment, as we see now,” adds Ronei Freitas, president of the Goiana Federation.
In conversations with voters, Xaud knew how to explore a weakness of the predecessor and used as maintaining terms such as decentralizing, dialogue, collective construction and pacification.
Political inability was one of the keys of Ednaldo’s fall, two months ago and now raffled by the same electoral college that had endorsed it. Centralizing and suspiciously became the target of ancient enemies, created above all for breaking agreements.
Central figure of the opposing field was Fernando Sarney, son of former President José Sarney and CBF deputy for decades, who occupied the entity’s seats at Conmebol and FIFA. Ednaldo broke him to occupy his chairs himself.
Fernando waited for a moment of weakness to overthrow him, along with heavy allies, such as Flávio Zveiter, former president of the STJD and son of Judge Luiz Zveiter, the Feijó (Gustavo and Felipe, father and son), of the Alagoas Federation and allies of Deputy Arthur Lira, is a growing force at CBF, IDP (Brazilian Institute of Education, Development and Research).
Founded by STF Minister Gilmar Mendes and directed by his son, Francisco Mendes, IDP has an agreement with CBF Academy to manage courses and indicated much of the current directors of the Confederation.
The mismanagement and abuse and deviations revealed in helping to weaken Ednaldo and undermine the supports she kept, until she pushed him from office and detonated the transition, led by intervener Fernando Sarney.
At the time of choice, the successor, the profession of physician-Distantile and Social Chandelier-and the experience as a manager-he said Roraima’s main hospital and was Deputy Secretary of Health in Boa Vista-also contributed to the Xaud solution, despite the problems he had in both cases: it is for the first EE to cover malfections in the second. He denies both accusations.
“The issue of complaints, I particularly don’t know, with all sincerity. For me nothing came about, I don’t know if this is fake news,” says Freitas of the Goiás Federation.
For him, the judicialization of Ednaldo management stains the image of the CBF. “His name was already very worn out, all the time is a different situation, we are tired, there is a World Cup to start. When this possibility came up, we already gather around a name that allows you to resolve. This is demoralizing football a lot and we are also a manager.”
