Brazil fans plan protests against Teixeira
Reuters - Thursday 18 August 2011, 18:58
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian fans plan
matchday protests against Ricardo Teixeira, the head of the
country's football association, to demand he step down from his
role at the 2014 World Cup.
The protests, involving more than 20 fan groups, come after
police opened an investigation into corruption allegations
against Teixeira, who has dominated Brazilian football for two
decades and heads the local organising committee for the World
Cup in Brazil.
The demonstrations will take place at league games on the
weekend of August 27/28.
Fans from clubs including Rio's Flamengo and Sao Paulo's
Corinthians will carry banners demanding that Teixeira step down
from his World Cup role, the National Confederation of Fan
Organizations (Conatorg) said on its website.
"One of our flags will be the fight against Ricardo
Teixeira. We want a transparent administration with ethics,"
said Wildner Rocha, the president of Conatorg.
Police are analysing documents seized in a raid on a sports
marketing firm in Rio de Janeiro they suspect may have been used
as a front to siphon off 9 million reais ($5.6 million) in
public funds. The money was meant to help fund a friendly match
between Brazil and Portugal in 2008.
According to a report by the Record television station that
drew attention to the case, the firm was opened just days before
the match and its owner - a woman who worked in the fashion
industry - later leased land belonging to Teixeira.
The CBF, Brazil's football federation, has denied the
allegations against Teixeira, a FIFA Executive Committee member
who has often been at the centre of controversy.
Teixeira called the English "pirates" this year after David
Triesman, the former head of the English FA, accused him in a
parliamentary inquiry of asking for a bribe in return for his
vote for England's bid to stage the 2018 World Cup finals.
A subsequent inquiry found no evidence for Triesman's
allegation and FIFA cleared Teixeira of any wrongdoing.
Teixeira is also furious about allegations made by BBC's
Panorama programme that he took bribes totalling nearly six
million pounds from collapsed FIFA TV rights
company ISL in the 1990s.
FIFA head Sepp Blatter is attempting to clean up FIFA's
image in the wake of bribery and corruption allegations against
nine of its 24-man executive committee.