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Fields of corruption: heritage and politics in Brazilian football

ABSTRACT Football has never been free of politics. This is particularly the case when football is considered part of a nation’s cultural heritage. Although heritage recognition and designation are often sought by sports organisations to enhance particular political, ideological and economic agendas, it is unusual for organisations to refute designation to address the same agendas. Influenced by Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, this article examines how and why political agents influenced by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) have rejected football-based heritage nominations in the Brazilian National Congress (BNC) since 2005. Often considered an administrative decision made by heritage experts at Heritage Committees following technical criteria, in Brazil, heritage nominations have also been proposed at the Legislative branch by politicians. In this context, this paper presents the nine proposed legal recognitions of football and the Brazilian National Team as part of the nation’s cultural heritage and discusses how and why these proposals were rejected. The results demonstrate that a well-organised group of approximately 40 politicians who received direct or indirect benefits from the CBF to protect the economic and management interests of the football entity – benefits that would have been adversely impacted had heritage nominations been successful. As such, it revealed that national identity discourses linked to football on heritage nominations can be activated and manipulated for political gain but also neglected if they pose a risk to football directors in power.