He played for some of Latin America’s greatest teams yet never kicked a ball. He was a player everybody wanted yet nobody ever saw. Carlos Kaiser is quite simply football’s greatest ever con man.
Forget George Weah’s cousin – Carlos Kaiser spent an entire career convincing people he was a great player.
In the era before Youtube and GIFs Kaiser managed to convince the great and good of Brazilian football that he was a superstar and then would embark on a series of elaborate cons to ensure he never got near an actual pitch.
Over two decades he managed to befriend stars like Bebeto and Carlos Alberto, Edmundo and even Diego Maradona while wooing dangerous owners like Castor de Andrade in order to keep up his image as a star footballer.
In truth he was a likeable charlatan who did whatever he could to sustain a rock star lifestyle.
Born Carlos Henrique Raposo in Rio in 1963, Carlos Kaiser started his youth career at Botafogo. He would go on to sign for some for Brazil’s top clubs and somehow never kick a ball.
He was nicknamed Kaiser (probably by himself) due to resemblance to Franz Beckenbauer when he was young.
After befriending owners and players he would convince them to sign him, often by bribing journalists to write ‘fake news’ about how good he was.
Once signed his regular scams to get out of playing were feigning injury (usually a hamstring) in his first training session or by paying youth players to clatter him so he could then feign another injury.
“I wanted to be among the other players,” Kaiser says. “I just didn’t want to play. It’s everybody else’s problem if they want me to be a footballer. Not even Jesus pleased everybody. Why would I?”
But the truth was Kaiser was liked. He somehow managed to get fellow team mates and club owners into restaurants and hotels they could never get reservations at. He had contacts in every town and city and was fun to be around.
Kaiser’s most famous – and most dangerous – scam occurred while playing for Bangu, then owned by Castor de Andrade, a well-known criminal. Often described as the most dangerous man in Brazil, he was great friends with the Fifa president João Havelange and after one match he chased a referee around the pitch, a gun flapping in his back pocket.
Castor – like most people – fell for Kaiser’s charm and one weekend he informed him that he would be on the bench for the game. Despite seeking reassurances from the coach that he would be a non-playing substitute, Bangu found themselves 2-0 down early on, prompting Castor to demand Kaiser be brought on.
Rather than refuse and incur Castor’s wrath or be brought on and then be found out for the fraud he was, Kaiser decided to improvise. While warming up, Kaiser said he heard an opposing fan call him a “long-haired faggot” and he used it as an excuse to start a brawl with the away supporters. He was sent off before getting on the pitch.
His legend remains as bright as ever in Brazil and a documentary and book are due to be released about Kaiser in the UK next year. Despite being a con artist he was and still is well loved.
Bebeto, the World Cup-winning striker of 1994, said: “His chat was so good that if you let him open his mouth - that would be it. He’d charm you. You couldn’t avoid it. That would be it.”
In a day and age where football is so serious and multi-millionaires call the shots it is people like Kaiser that help us remember why those of us of a certain age fell in love with the game. It is the characters we enjoyed the most. There are non-greater than Carlos Kaiser!
