BRASÍLIA, July 10 – Brazil football legend Romario, now a lawmaker, said Wednesday that the sport’s chiefs should serve prison time for the national team’s humiliating 7-1 World Cup defeat to Germany.
One day after the semi-final thrashing, Romario said the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) was plagued by corruption because clubs have elected the same leaders for years.
“Our football has been deteriorating for years. It is being dragged down by leaders who don’t even have the talent to juggle the ball,” Romario said in a letter posted on social media.
“They stay in their luxury box seats, enjoying the millions that go into their accounts,” the 1994 World Cup winner said.
The prolific striker said players and coaches were not to blame for the sport’s deterioration.
He said CBF president Jose Maria Marin and his deputy, Marco Polo del Nero, who will take over in 2015, “should be in prison”.
Romario, a critic of the record $11 billion spent on the tournament, bemoaned the fact that President Dilma Rousseff will have to hand the World Cup trophy to a team other than Brazil in Sunday’s final.
“They will leave with the Cup and we will be left with our overbilled stadiums and no material legacy,” he said. “This will be the Cup of shame.”
Meanwhile the agent of star striker Neymar has launched a furious assault on national coach Luiz Felipe Scolari over the defeat.
Wagner Ribeiro, who represents several top Brazilian players, set out a six point list of “technical requirements” for the coach that made barbed references to Scolari, without specifically mentioning him.
The boss should have “trained Portugal and won nothing”, he said in the Twitter statement.
He should go to Chelsea and be “sacked”, coach in Uzbekistan then return to Brazil “and take a good team into the second division.”
The coach should be “arrogant and ridiculous,” he added.
Scolari was coach of the Brazil side that won the World Cup in 2002. But he also led Portugal when they reached the Euro 2004 final and the World Cup semi-final in 2006, coached in Uzbekistan and was in charge at Brazilian side Palmeiras.
Scolari told a press conference on Wednesday that his future would be decided after the World Cup but that he would not change any of his preparations with Brazil’s national side for the tournament.
