by Former Brazil coach Tite denounced commentator and former soccer player José Ferreira Neto, better known as Neto, for consider that he insulted him with terms such as “donkey” and “idiot”, after the elimination of the five-time World Cup champions in Qatar 2022, Judicial sources reported this Thursday.
Adenor Leonardo Bachi, Tite, filed a formal complaint for this crime last Wednesday in Sao Paulo, as can be seen on the process portal of the Court of Justice of the state of São Paulo.
According to the material attached by the technician’s lawyers, 61, the case alludes to some comments made by Neto on December 9 on the television program ‘Os donos da bola’, from the local channel Bandafter Brazil lost on penalties to Croatia in the quarterfinals.
Visibly excited, the former Brazilian midfielder for Palmeiras, Sao Paulo and Corinthians called him a “donkey”, “idiot”, “vagrant”, “miserable” and “imbecile”, among other terms.
The “expressions -some of them uttered repeatedly- form an unequivocal set of offenses, whatever the context in which they were said. They have a highly pejorative character and have no other meaning than to affect the honor of the complainant, offended in his dignity and decorum,” Tite’s lawyers maintained, according to the portal Globe Sports.
Neto, 56, has not commented at the moment and faces a fine or up to six months in detention, according to the penal code, which provides, however, for greater penalties if the culprit committed the crime in front of several people or by a medium that facilitates the disclosure of the injury.
A video with part of Neto’s sayings, published on the channel of the sports program on YouTube, has more than 815,000 views. After six and a half years in office, Tite left the technical direction of the ‘Seleção’ at the end of the World Cup in Qatar, currently assumed on an interim basis by Ramon Menezes.
The Italian-Swiss Gianni Infantino was re-elected this Thursday, March 16, as FIFA president until 2027, a position he has held since 2016, without opposition and by acclamation, at the 73rd Congress of the instance in Kigali.
The 52-year-old leader, already re-elected under the same conditions in 2019 by the delegates of the body’s 211 national federations, could remain at the helm of world football until 2031, since his first three-year term is considered incomplete.
“I love you”, the boss of world soccer reacted in front of the standing delegates, without the voting system allowing to know if there were dissenting voices.
In his assets, Infantino can show a solid financial balance, with an increase of 18% in income and 45% in reserves in the 2019-22 cycle compared to the previous one, which allows Fifa to further increase its subsidies to the confederations and federations.
On the governance side, his last term was marked by a vast transfer reform, by the institution of maternity leave for professional soccer players, as well as more protective disciplinary process rules for victims of sexual violence.
Now, the main works for the next few years are underway, starting with the change of the men’s World Cup from 32 to 48 teams from the 2026 edition, organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico, decided in 2017 and whose format was set on Tuesday.
By opting for a group stage with 12 four-team brackets, the tournament will go from 64 to 104 games, a mastodon sculpted to explode ticket revenue and attract more broadcasters.
More delicate, Fifa decided on December 16 to expand its Club World Cup from an annual format of seven teams to a four-year competition of 32 teams as of 2025. A project that Infantino has been trying to launch for some time to compete with the lucrative UEFA Champions League, but which is announced as difficult to insert into the calendar.
*With information from AFP.
