Palmeiras World Champions?

By: Bruno Romani | April 2nd, 2007

So I’m new to the Offside team, bringing what you should know about Brazilian soccer (do you prefer the word football?). Be nice to me, ok? Forget the Brazilian national team for a moment. The universe of soccer in Brazil gets much more interesting as we talk about the clubs spread across the different leagues in the country. The hot-topic of the moment in Brazil is this:

Last week, CBF and Fifa granted Palmeiras the title of “club world champions” for a tournament played in 1951 named “Taça Rio.” The tournament had 8 clubs – Palmeiras (Brazil), Juventus (Italy), Red Star (Yugoslavia), Olympic Nice (France) in the group played in São Paulo; Vasco da Gama (Brazil), Austria Vienna (Austria), Sporting (Portugal) and Nacional (Uruguay) in the matches played in Rio.

Palmeiras fans who lived the frenzy of 1951 ignored the fact that this tournament was organized by the CBD (old version of the CBF) as a way to forget the failure of the national team in the 1950 world cup, and to them they felt like world-champions. Part of the newer generations of Palmeiras fans seem to celebrate this title as a way to forget the loss against Manchester United in 1999’s Intercontinental cup and the poor seasons in recent years.

Other clubs like Fluminense (winner of 1952’s Taça Rio) and Corinthians said they will seek the recognition of international tournaments won in the past. All this is generating debate among fans and journalists in Brazil. Who can be truly considered a world champions? Is that an obsession of Brazilians clubs? Can a club be world champions without winning the Copa Libertadores?

The title that Palmeiras officially holds now ironically has ties to its biggest rival Corinthians. In 2000, when Fifa decided to organize its first “Club World Championship,” officials decided to exclude 1999’s Copa Libertadores Champions, Palmeiras, and picked Vasco, 1998 Copa Libertadores winners, and Corinthians, 1998 Brazilian Champion. The choice of Corinthians, who later won the tournament, is highly controversial. Many feel that Palmeiras should’ve been chosen. However, one of Corinthians sponsors at the time, Traffic, was connected to the organizers of the tournament. Now, Fifa seems to be willing to correct its mistake by recognizing a title that for 56 years was considered only as an international tournament played in Brazil.

Also, The newspaper “Folha de S. Paulo” reports that in order to have “Taça Rio” recognized as a club world cup, Palmeiras’s officials asked Congressman Aldo Rebelo (PC do B) to pressure Joseph Blatter, who later passed the case to CBF. Ricardo Teixeira, CBF’s president, realized that recognizing Taça Rio as club world cup would be important for his own project of bringing the World Cup to Brazil in 2014. By supporting Palmeiras, Teixeira gained 3 important allies for bringing the Cup to Brazil: Congressman Aldo Rebelo, São Paulo’s governor José Serra and the president of the Paulista de Football Federation Marco Polo Del Nero.

This Sunday, before the derby against Sao Paulo (loss 3-1), Palmeiras appeared on the field wearing a shirt celebrating the title, similar to the one used in 1951. Now, someone needs to tell Fifa to update its list of world champions.