"Ganhar ou perder, mas sempre com democracia" (win or lose but always
with democracy), this motto of the SC Corinthians football club sums upthe spirit of what was for a few years a sporting incarnation of the
fight against the Brazilian military dictatorship. ---- Since 1964 and
the coup d'état of Marshal Castelo Branco, Brazil has lived under the
yoke of the generals, but in the early 1980s the protests became
increasingly strong. The amnesty law of August 22, 1979, adopted while
Brazil was going through a severe economic crisis that weakened the
regime, and which put the executioners and the victims on the same level
- since it guaranteed the absence of prosecutions both against police or
military torturers and against opponents engaged in armed struggle -
nevertheless marked the beginning of the end of the regime of the
military oligarchs. Social movements were experiencing a resurgence in
popularity. It was therefore in the midst of political and social
effervescence that a footballing and democratic experiment as brief as
it was unprecedented was born, the "Corinthian democracy".
Self-management in the locker room and on the field
"Players are treated like slaves. The authoritarian model is being
challenged throughout the country, it must also be in football." It was
with these words that Adilson Monteiro, a young 35-year-old sociologist
who had cut his teeth as an activist in the student protests of the
1970s and who had experienced the prisons of the generals' dictatorship,
inaugurated his appointment as sports director of SC Corinthians, the
most popular club in Sao Paulo, in November 1981. Adilson Monteiro then
initiated a revolution within the club: "Tell me what's wrong, take your
destiny into your own hands, be aware that you can command, we will all
decide together". Three players would be the spearheads of a movement
that would have a profound impact on the club: Socrates, Wladimir and
Casagrande.
Democracy was the order of the day in all decisions concerning the club:
distribution of revenue, format of training sessions, etc. were
developed and discussed collectively. Socrates recounts: "We opted for a
self-management solution by choosing one of our players to coach the
team". The club was then vilified by the press but on the pitch the
results were there, the team did not lose a single match between
November 1981 and July 1982!
An experiment that lasted four years
Corinthian democracy goes far beyond the sporting framework, it is a
concrete political and social model to oppose to the military junta. In
his Popular History of Football, Mickaël Correia recalls that "SC
Corinthians has claimed to be the "people's club" since its creation in
1910 - in opposition for example to the more posh São Paulo FC - the
team provides Brazilian society with a living example of a
self-management experiment that tackles the established order, to the
point of becoming a sounding board for the democratic aspirations of an
entire country"[1]. The victory of Corinthians against São Paulo FC in
the final of the Paulista championship is as much a sporting as a
political victory, in the stands a giant banner is unfurled, visible to
the 80,000 spectators in the stadium but also in all countries on
television: "Win or lose but always in democracy". The victory of
Corinthians signals the future defeat of the generals. It also marks the
apogee of Corinthian democracy and the beginning of the end.
The experience will not even last four years but it will have left a
deep mark on minds, in Brazil and far beyond, showing that it was
possible to practice and keep football alive in a socialist and
democratic framework, a sport where victory matters less than the way of
playing it and keeping it alive.
David (UCL Savoies)
Validate
[1]Mickaël Correia, Une histoire populaire du football, Édition de La
Découverte, 2018, p. 127
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Footballeurs-contre-la-dictature-La-democratie-corinthiane-une-utopie
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