Romario de Souza
“Will I become a coach in the future?” he once mused, before scoring his thousandth goal and hanging up his cleats. “No way. I’d never be able to put up with someone like me.” Of course, he went on to coach anyway for a stretch at his old club, Vasco da Gama.
Now, though, Romário, as he is simply known, is stirring up Brazilians yet again in a new realm: politics.
Elected to Congress in 2010 to represent Rio de Janeiro, Romário, 46 and sporting more than a few gray hairs, has emerged as one of Brazil’s most outspoken legislators, championing the rights of people with disabilities and delivering scathing critiques of Brazil’s political culture and its preparations for the 2014 World Cup.
Even more surprising, Romário, who once casually remarked that fellow members of the soccer national team arrived for morning practice around the same time that he was arriving home from nightclubs, also ranks among Brazil’s hardest-working lawmakers, compiling a nearly perfect attendance record.
“The tendency of everyone is to evolve,” Romário said in an interview on a recent Friday afternoon at his penthouse on Pepê Beach, one of Rio’s most exclusive strips of sand.
Indeed, Romário seems to have embraced personal change to the point that passers-by sometimes do a double-take when they see him. Bespectacled and often attired in dark suits, the 5-foot-6-inch former striker, whose nickname remains Baixinho (“Shorty”), could almost be mistaken for an auditor.
Brazil’s Congress welcomes new arrivals cut from unconventional cloth. A professional clown, called Tiririca, won a 2010 election in a protest vote. The boxer Acelino Freitas, known as Popó, and two soccer players, Danrlei de Deus Hinterholz and Deley de Oliveira, round out a roster of former professional athletes who are now legislators.
But none have the star power of Romário, whose journey from goal mouth to the Chamber of Deputies remains remarkable, even to him. The foray into politics, he said, made sense only after the arrival of his sixth child, Ivy, who was born in 2005 with Down syndrome.
He said the first moments after learning of her condition were terrifying, during which he asked himself, “What have I done? Am I paying for a sin in my past?” He said his wife, Isabella Bittencourt, calmed him by saying that God had given them Ivy.
With hindsight, he now says his daughter helped him mature by giving him purpose as a politician. After joining the Socialist Party, he began focusing on the rights of the disabled. He proved instrumental in the approval of legislation, named partly in honor of his daughter, creating special subsidies for people with disabilities.
“I’m finally used to Brasília,” he said of the capital, while explaining that it took months to grasp the importance of arcane rules of seniority and decorum in the Congress.
Still, long-winded speeches by fellow legislators irk him. So does their seemingly relaxed approach to the job of legislating. “I’ve been in Brasília three weeks and nothing happens,” Romário said in a February Twitter message. “Does the year really start after Carnival?”
Rookie members of Congress are not supposed to make such statements about their peers, which explains, perhaps, some of the admiration Romário has received outside Brasília. Calling him a “voice in the desert,”, the writer Lya Luft lauded his courage in an essay about accountability in Brazilian politics.
Romário’s criticism of Brazil’s political establishment intensified in recent weeks as he focused on the country’s preparations for the 2014 World Cup, which have been marred by corruption scandals, construction delays and strikes by workers at sites where stadiums are being built.
Vexing FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, Brazilian lawmakers also bickered for months over a controversial bill providing the legal framework for the World Cup, with Brazilian authorities chafing at the possibility of selling alcohol in stadiums. Jerome Valcke, FIFA’s secretary general, infuriated Brazil’s sports authorities when he recently referred to the delays, employing a polemical phrase calling for a kick in the backside to get things moving. While the Senate finally approved the World Cup bill this month, Romário said he unfortunately had to agree with Mr. Valcke.
“He is totally correct,” said Romário, while acknowledging that something might have been lost in the translation of Mr. Valcke’s words. “Brazil is way behind and needs to wake up,” he said. “We Brazilians, happily or unhappily, leave a lot to the last minute. This means a great deal of money will be robbed from our pockets.”
Romário, explaining that he feared construction companies could be purposely delaying projects to bypass normal bidding and auditing rules, is not alone in voicing concerns over Brazil’s preparations. But his prominence in the world of soccer and his origins in the slums of Rio make his views resonate.
Born in the favela of Jacarezinho, he moved to Vila da Penha, another gritty district, at age 3. Recruited as a teenager to play for Vasco da Gama, he followed his star to Europe, playing in the Netherlands, for P.S.V. Eindhoven, and in Spain, for Barcelona.
Sidelined in the 1990 World Cup by a swollen ankle, he attained greatness during Brazil’s 1994 World Cup victory, scoring prolifically and triumphantly waving the Brazilian flag from the cockpit of the chartered DC-10 that brought the national team home from the United States.
Brazil also got a taste of Romário’s sense of entitlement after a scandal erupted over the decision by the tax authorities to let the victorious squad return with television sets, barbecue grills, computers and other items, without paying customs duties. “We represented Brazil,” he said at the time. “If they don’t release my luggage, I’m giving back my medal.”
Romário’s willingness to speak his mind with creative barbs, often employing the slang of Rio’s streets, heightened his notoriety. Nurturing some grudges to this day, he maintains a slow-burning feud with Pelé, who questioned the validity of Romário’s 1,000-goal count.
“When Pelé’s quiet, he’s a poet,” Romário said. But when he opens his mouth, he said, he adds nothing.
Despite the tailored suits, spectacles and other trappings of power in Brasília, Romário insists that he is still the same man he was running up and down the field. Controversy seems to cling to him, as when his driver’s license was seized last year at a police checkpoint, after he refused to take a Breathalyzer test.
“It was my right to refuse,” said Romário, who was photographed later that night at a Rio nightclub.
Romário said that Listerine mouthwash could have mistakenly indicated that he had been drinking, and insisted that he rarely indulges in any tipple aside from the occasional glass of prosecco. Moreover, he said he recently voted for a bill that would make Breathalyzer tests mandatory for suspected drunken drivers.
While his views on political life have evolved — or at least are in a state of flux — his views on soccer remain as headstrong as ever.
He still thinks prolific goal-scorers merit more privileges than other players. He spoke well of the talents of some strikers, including Brazil’s Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, Lionel Messi of Argentina and Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal. But grudging respect is one thing, humility another.
When asked whether these exceptional strikers were at his level of talent, he said they were not. “They’re great players, but they’re no Romário,” he said.
“To be in history like Romário,” he continued, referring to himself in the third person as is his custom, “they have to win a World Cup.”
With those words, he shifted his gaze to the sands of Pepê Beach. A game of futevôlei, the Brazilian beach sport combining soccer and volleyball, and requiring astonishing dexterity, was beckoning him. It was a Friday, after all, and Brasília’s corridors of power seemed far away.
He insisted that he was the same Romário as ever, and that his appetite for nighttime escapades and public quarreling remained strong. But in a rare flash of introspection, he also acknowledged that such actions have consequences.
“I pay my own bills,” he said. “I feel my own pain.”
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