Five-time Cup winners Brazil no longer united by canary yellow
KOLKATA: The canary yellow shirt that united Brazil now divides. The colour in which its football team won five World Cup titles is also used by President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters and that is reason enough for many Brazilians to get very shirty. They have started a movement to get the ‘Selecao’ (the national team) to revert to the white-and-blue strip of the 1950 World Cup.
“We’re in a ghastly situation with a horrendous government that has stolen our flag,” said João Carlos Assumpção in a report in The Guardian. Assumpcao is a writer and filmmaker.
“I think wearing yellow means shooting yourself in the foot right now because yellow is identified with Bolsonaro’s bunch. We need to wear white and blue in order to contrast ourselves with Bolsonaro.”
Brazil have worn canary yellow at every World Cup after 1950; the earlier strip being discarded following the 1-2 loss to Uruguay. But with Bolsonaro’s followers using the same colours --- often at events that denounce physical distancing even though Brazil have reported 1.63 million Covid-19 cases and over 65,000 deaths --- many want an attire change for their football team.
“For me they (the colours) now symbolise intolerance, political ignorance, fascism even,” said Lucas Justiniano, 36, a São Paulo filmmaker.
An idea of what ‘canarinho’ means to the people of the country, which has an airline called ‘Gol’ and where football is part of life, literature and more, was had at the 2014 World Cup. Petrol pumps were colour-coordinated to match what the national team wore. On match days involving Brazil, women used bright yellow eye-liners and most people wore team shirts to work.
Not everyone, however, agrees with Assumpção and Justiniano. “You cannot let the crooks steal your most personal things,” said Joca Kfouri, 70, one of Brazil’s leading sports writers. There are many like him who want to take back the yellow from right-wing followers of Bolsonaro who has tested positive for Covid-19. Folha de Sao Paulo, a leading newspaper, has even launched a campaign urging people to wear yellow in pro-democracy campaigns.
The Brazilian football federation, CBF, has not reacted to calls for a change in colours of the Selecao.