Eric Cantona: Fifa’s corruption divides Brazilian football from its roots

Just back from making a documentary in Rio, the Frenchman has a jaundiced view of the governing body’s modus operandi. It will surprise precisely no one who has taken even a passing interest in his life and career, but Eric Cantona is no great fan of football’s governing bodies.
Having recently returned from Rio de Janeiro, where he has been making a documentary about Brazilian football and politics that will receive its UK premiere at Amnesty International’s Sidelines film festival next month, he has a jaundiced view of Fifa’s modus operandi.

As a film-maker Cantona is taking aim at the power structures that underpin the game.
As a player he spent much of a mercurial, stellar career at odds with the establishment and retirement has not mellowed him. Now, as a film-maker, he is taking aim at the power structures that underpin the game.

In light of the protests in Brazil against what is seen as Fifa’s controlling approach to staging the tournament and against a government spending $11bn (£6.5bn) on the World Cup at a time of underinvestment in public services, the Frenchman views Sepp Blatter’s “corrupt” governing body as “so powerful, stronger than any country”.

In an interview with Amnesty in Paris, the former Manchester United striker has strongly questioned the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, saying it proves Fifa “don’t really care about the sport” and he fears that globalised, commoditised football will be ultimately damaging to the sport.

Yet Cantona – pondering how recently Brazil was a military dictatorship and its relative youth as a democracy – says he is equally convinced that the spotlight the World Cup will shine on the vast, swiftly evolving nation is a good thing. “It is why this World Cup is very important. Because the World Cup is there, now everybody can know a lot of things and they can speak and they can debate about things,” he said. “All the people, the journalists, TV [cameras], all the media from all around the world [will highlight the issues]. Unfortunately what’s happening is not very nice – it is horrible – but I think it is an opportunity for the country to take that in a positive way for the future.”

In the documentary, the seventh he has made, Cantona investigates the histories and culture of the four biggest clubs in Rio – Fluminense, Vasco da Gama, Flamengo and Botafogo – and explores the impact of the World Cup on the city.

Across Brazil there are complaints that some of the new stadiums built with public money have cost up to three times what they should have, due to alleged corruption, and will result in poorer fans being priced out, as private companies try to operate them at a profit.

Cantona, who splits his time between film-making and acting these days, has much sympathy for those who fear it will prevent the poorest attending games.

“I have been in Maracanã before and I loved Maracanã. [But] now it is just a stadium like the Emirates Stadium, or Stade de France. And they say: ‘It’s a revolution for us, we have to educate the people to sit.’ But they don’t want to sit, they just want to stand up and sing and dance,” he said. Those who want to sing and dance can’t afford to go any more, he says. “So they don’t educate them, they just throw them away and bring [in] people who can pay for the tickets.” Around the world Cantona says he can see football becoming detached from its roots. Given the amount of money flowing into the game from broadcasting deals and ticket revenue, he suggests that a fifth of all tickets should be available at affordable prices.

Watching football at the Emirates or Old Trafford is “very, very expensive” he says. In his view a proportion of tickets should be “reserved for the people who are the ones really in love with football but they cannot pay for the tickets now”.
Cantona is still revered by Manchester United fans in particular, not only for his ability on the pitch but his style and swagger off it, and laments the fact that footballers “from the street” will only be able to watch the sport on television.

“They just want to throw them away. But it is a shame because it’s these kind of fans who made football and it’s these kind of fans who have a child who will play football,” said Cantona. “Because most of the people, most of the players come from poor areas. To be a footballer you need to train every day when you are a kid, you need to go in the street and play in the street every day.”

Cantona, who most recently hit the headlines here over an altercation with a paparazzi photographer in north London, says “all the best players” grew up in poor areas, name-checking Maradona, Pelé, Messi, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. For him, football is 50% physical and 50% psychological. “You need to be angry, because it is not only about abilities. Abilities is 50% and 50% is mentally. And mentally is where you learn how to fight … it is in the street.”

For him a broken link between the street and the stadium should be of urgent concern to Fifa – which was mocked last week for spending an alleged £16m on a hagiography of Blatter that premiered at the Cannes film festival – and football’s other governing bodies. “This kind of people, this kind of young guys, need to go to the stadium also with their parents, not to see football only on TV in a bar, because maybe they don’t have the money to buy their own TV,” he said.

“So it depends on what they want to do … the authorities in football, FA, Uefa or Fifa. They speak a lot of good things, [about] fair play. Where is the fair play if we take this example, where is the fair play? They have to show examples – not only words. But it is just my point of view.”

Cantona saves his most damning opinions for the decision to take the World Cup to Qatar in 2022.

Amid controversy about how the tiny Gulf state won the vote to host the tournament and questions about the treatment of migrant workers building the infrastructure, Cantona is unequivocal about Fifa’s decision. “They have their responsibility. And in giving the World Cup to Qatar they show the world that they don’t really care about the sport,” he said.

Whereas he believes Brazil deserves to have the World Cup “in terms of football” and understands the argument for taking it to a country like the US to develop the sport, he believes there is no justification for a Qatar World Cup. “In Qatar there is no hope, because people from Qatar they don’t play football. Eighty per cent of the people, they work for the other ones, sleeping in – you know – small areas, so many of them. Some of them died, they work for those other ones,” said Cantona. “Those other ones who don’t care about football, their kids don’t play football. So I just cannot understand. They [Fifa] will have that on their backs for centuries and centuries I think.”

Cantona believes Uefa should also be held to account for giving the European Under-21 championship to Israel in light of what he claims is “the same kind of injustice” in human rights terms.

The Frenchman, who is working on a documentary about French immigration as refracted through the lens of football, will attend the premiere of his Brazil film at the festival in Hackney. An itinerant life as a wandering film-maker, pondering pressing social issues through football and listening to the stories of those he meets on the way, seems to rather suit him.

“If I can say it, I say it. I don’t have any kind of responsibility [to anyone], I don’t feel a responsibility of saying things, I just try to understand, make documentaries, go to countries, meet people, read things about the story of the country, everything,” he says. “I am rich in that. Of course I have got money too, but my richest thing is to be curious.”