Brazil’s World Cup campaign kicked off with a low-key draw against Switzerland on Sunday evening and while there are great expectations made of the Seleção and a genuine belief among football fans that they find themselves one of the favourites to win a record-sixth title, research conducted in Latin America’s largest country has revealed record levels of disinterest in the tournament back home.
The survey was conducted by Datafolha between the 6th and 7th of June with its findings divulged this week by national media. In total 53% of those asked for their thoughts on the World Cup affirmed that they had no interest in FIFA’s marquee spectacle, which was the highest figure since the poll was first established in 1994 and an increase from 42% at the beginning of 2018. Among women, an even higher 61% was recorded and overall, only 48% of Brazilians stated a belief that their compatriots could become world champions for the first time since 2002.
A number of criteria was considered such as race, age, gender, religion and household income, yet participants were not asked to expand further on their reasoning in declaring little enthusiasm for the Copa do Mundo. There could be a number of explanations however, with few of them pertaining to football itself.
Though it would be foolish to deny the impact that 7-1 may have had on the Brazilian psyche, swathes of the country’s 200 million-plus population never wanted the 2014 edition of the tournament on home soil to begin with and by 2013 had already taken to the streets in protest at the vast amounts of money being blown on stadiums that would have been better spent on schools, hospitals and general improvements to Brazil’s dire public services that taxes of anything up to 27.5% fail to improve as self-serving politicians help themselves to the coffers with impunity.
A few months after Brazil 2014, the nation became more polarised than ever after the reelection of Dilma Rouseff from the leftist Workers Party preceded the worst recession in its history and record levels of crime and unemployment weren’t far behind. Though a wide-ranging corruption scandal saw many of the political elite and their bedfellows jailed, the economy remains a mess and life just as difficult.
Therefore, while 53% could still represent well over 100 million Brazilians and some of those who answered negatively could merely be uninterested in football on the whole, the other half of the population finds it difficult to get behind their country with all that has passed since and continues to this day.
Be the results as they are, the optimists still suggest that a Brazil win in Russia could unite a bitterly-divided land in much need of a lift - even if only until the next general election in October that could see the return of Dilma’s jailed predecessor Lula da Silva to power or a Trump-like candidate in Jair Bolsonaro take the helm.
