In sensitive times, when Premier League clubs are willing to spend more than £1bn in the transfer window yet furlough their staff, and the league decides to charge fans box-office prices for pay-per-view games on top of already extortionate TV packages, a transfer deal struck a different note of tone-deafness in Brazil. Earlier this month, Santos announced that Robinho, one of their most famous academy products, was returning home for a “last pedal”. The tagline to the transfer was a play on his trademark stepover, known in Portuguese as the “pedalada”, as well as a nod to the fact that, at 36, this could be his Michael Jordan-esque last dance in football.
Robinho was commended for charging just 1,500 reais (£208) a month in wages – just 150% of the minimum wage in Brazil – but, on a much wider scale, there was outrage that Santos would sign him at all, never mind shower their social media accounts with celebratory posts about the deal. Three years ago, Robinho was found guilty of taking part in the gang rape of a woman in Italy in 2013. He was given a nine-year sentence but, because Brazil does not allow for the extradition of its own citizens, he has never served any time in jail. He pleaded not guilty in the trial and is appealing the verdict. He says his “contact” with the woman on the night was consensual and that his only regret is that he cheated on his wife.
Santos, the club that gave the world Pelé and Neymar, were quickly accused of hypocrisy when they announced that they had signed Robinho. The club has backed various social campaigns about mistreatment of women and, to make matters worse, they unveiled the player on Brazil’s national day to combat violence against women.
Santos must have known they would be criticised for signing Robinho. He was playing for Atlético Mineiro when he was found guilty in 2017 and, when he visited Corinthians three days after the verdict was passed, the home fans greeted his every touch with cries of “Estrupador!” (“Rapist!”) and similar insults. That being said, Santos are not the first club in Brazil to make dubious moral decisions.
When São Paulo sacked goalkeeper Jean after he was arrested and charged for beating his wife, Atlético Goianiense saw an opportunity and signed him. Jean’s wife said he punched her eight times, even posting a video of her bruised face online, but the club’s president made light of the incident, saying: “He is a great athlete and deserves to have a new opportunity in life. We all made mistakes, but we are going to back him up.”
Bruno, another Brazilian goalkeeper, was released from prison in 2017 after serving less than seven years of a 22-year sentence for ordering the murder of an extramarital girlfriend who had given birth to his child. She was strangled, her body was cut up and parts of it were fed to dogs, yet he still earns a living at Rio Branco. The coach of the Rio Branco women’s team quit in protest when he signed, but that did not dissuade the club.
These cases speak to the impunity footballers enjoy in a society where a woman is raped every 11 minutes, beaten every four minutes and killed every seven hours. This societal problem is even more pronounced in football, says Brazilian sports journalist Renata Mendonca. “Football in Brazil was born as a sport that was proudly machista – by prohibiting the participation of women in the game and rejecting their presence – and because of this we see it cement behaviours that are extremely harmful to them.
“The player has idol status in his favour. It’s already difficult for a woman to be able to complain when the aggressor is a ‘normal’ man; the mission is practically impossible when it involves a football player.” It is the only crime in which the victim reports it and has her word questioned. It is as if she has to explain why she suffered the crime.
“The message this sends is that women’s lives don’t matter. It is worth less than the three points of a championship victory. And because of the indifference in the treatment of these cases – which are practically ignored, as if they never happened – they are more and more recurrent. We haven’t been able to get through a season without at least one player involved in crimes against women. Even Bruno has fans out there and had a line of clubs trying to sign him.
“Clubs don’t understand how and why it disgusts fans and women who follow football so much. Santos signed Robinho yet they shouldn’t have even talked to him due to how the rape case in Italy has progressed. Put simply, this happens because the clubs don’t think these charges are relevant enough to prevent a hiring, and, unfortunately, that is the reality. They aren’t relevant.”
Concerns about Robinho’s rape case did not deter Santos, who knew he would be playing in empty stadiums and could dodge the treatment he received at the Arena Corinthians back in 2017. But, crucially, the club’s sponsors were not willing to back a player convicted of rape. Spurred on by a leaked recording of Robinho saying he didn’t “give a toss” about the woman, sponsors put pressure on Santos to suspend his contract.
The electronics company Philco said they would stop sponsoring Santos unless the club terminated his contract immediately as “no act of violence against a woman should be tolerated”. Orthopride ended their sponsorship of the club. “We have enormous respect for Santos’ history,” said their chief operating officer. “But we have decided to terminate the sponsorship contract. Our audience is mostly female and, out of respect for the women who buy our products, we had to make that decision. We were not previously informed about the signing. We were taken by surprise by the news.”
Faced with the prospect of losing more money, Santos suspended Robinho, saying they wanted to give him the space and time to “concentrate exclusively on his court defence in Italy”. Some of the club’s fans have reacted angrily, even intimidating and threatening journalists who have covered the story. Rodrigo Capelo says he had to delete nearly 3,000 abusive messages after his phone number was leaked by Santos fans. The commentator and columnist Marília Ruiz contacted the police after she received 60 death threats.
The player, meanwhile, has tried to paint himself as the victim, saying the Globo media group are unfairly turning him into a pariah in the way they have done with Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro. Speaking to a friend in a recording that was subsequently leaked, Robinho said he was “at peace” and was planning to return to football, score a goal and celebrate by unveiling a T-shirt that declares: “Globo trash, Bolsonaro is right.” Thanks to the bravery of the female journalists who have covered the story and received torrents of abuse for taking a stand, Robinho will probably never celebrate scoring another goal in Brazil again.
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