Friday, March 29

Neymar joins Bolsonaro’s campaign in a live broadcast before a million people: “With his re-election and Brazil as champion, everyone will be happy”

The Brazilian president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, has given a blow to the stretch of his campaign for the second round of the presidential elections next Sunday with the participation of the soccer player Neymar Júnior in one of his acts. The striker for the Brazilian National Team and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) intervened yesterday in a YouTube direct of the president in which he encouraged his compatriots to vote for him and expressed that he shares a series of “values” with the general in the reserve, known for his contempt for homosexuals or his outbursts against women, indigenous people and other minorities in his country.

“What motivated me to expose myself – to declare his support for Bolsonaro – are the values ​​that the president proclaims: family and freedoms. That is why I call on all those who want to position themselves and have the freedom to express their feelings”, he pointed out last night in a live broadcast of the president called Superlive da Liberdade (Superlive of Freedom), which lasted 22 hours (the number that must be pressed on the electronic voting machines to vote for Bolsonaro) and in which, in addition to Neymar, other artists and personalities from the country participated.

The far-right leader opened this online event yesterday, followed by more than a million viewers, one week before the second round of the presidential elections in the country. The current president lost the first round against Lula da Silva by some six million votes, but since then he has been closing the gap in the polls, which now place both close to a technical tie. One of the latest polls, the prestigious Datafolhaof the newspaper La Folha de São Paulo granted the former president 49% of the support and 45% for the current president, a scenario close to a technical tie if the margin of error of the survey is taken into account.

With the morale of his followers skyrocketing, Bolsonaro yesterday invited the PSG footballer to his online chat. There, Neymar, who had already asked for the vote for the president in the first round, opened up to the spectators and conceded that in his “most difficult” moment, Bolsonaro “was the first to publicly” say that he would be by his side. “Without knowing each other personally, [Bolsonaro] He showed me his love and put his chest and face for me. Now I am doing the same for him”, said the footballer without clarifying what that difficult moment had been. In 2019, Bolsonaro publicly defended the player when he was accused by a Brazilian model of having raped her in a Paris hotel, in a case that was filed for lack of evidence.

Now, Neymar faces a trial for alleged corruption in business and fraud during the negotiations of his signing for the Barcelona Football Club. The Prosecutor’s Office and the investment fund DIS, owner of 40% of the federal rights of the Brazilian striker, see these criminal types for the negotiations and agreements that Barcelona entered into with the Brazilian club Santos to incorporate Neymar.

After spending this week on the bench, Neymar decided last night to intervene in Bolsonaro’s broadcast. “It is facing and not being afraid to fight. With Bolsonaro re-elected and Brazil champion [en el Mundial de Qatar 2022 que comienza en un mes] everyone will be happy. The feeling of using our flag and our colors is a great pride”, she expressed. Bolsonaro “is the right guy to lead our Brazil. We are seeing what he is doing and what he can still improve on. I ask young people to follow the hearts of their parents and do what they have to do for Brazil”, he insisted.

Bolsonaro, whose mandate has been marked by his denial theories about the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of 670,000 people in the country – the second with the highest mortality after the United States -, was already known before becoming president for his homophobic gestures , misogynists and racists. When he was a practically unknown parliamentarian, he blurted out in the corridors of Congress to deputy Maria do Rosario, from Lula’s Workers’ Party, that he would never rape her because she did not deserve it; During the impeachment trial of former president Dilma Rousseff, Bolsonaro went to the rostrum to dedicate his vote to one of the former president’s torturers, Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra; In 2017, in a public act, he affirmed that the quilombolas –the Afro-descendant people who are grouped in communities called quilombos– were not good “even to procreate”.

Neymar last night defended the “values” that the former president proclaims, which, he said, are the same ones that he transmits to his family and children. Bolsonaro thanked the soccer player for his support and his “example”. Other Brazilian football figures such as Ronaldinho Gaúcho, Felipe Melo, Rivaldo, Romario, Lucas Moura, Robinho or Renato Gaúcho have declared their vote in favor of the far-right candidate.

These days, Lula da Silva referred to the striker’s support for Bolsonaro and slipped that it could perhaps be related to a supposed “forgiveness” that the treasury would have made to Neymar on a millionaire debt. “I’m not angry. Neymar has the right to choose whoever he wants as president. I think he is afraid that if he wins the elections it will be known that Bolsonaro forgave him the income tax debt. I think that’s why he’s afraid of me. Obviously Bolsonaro made a deal with his father,” he said in an interview this week.





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