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Something that got a little bit of attention in Rio was Neymar, currently the most well known name in Brazilian soccer, celebrating the win with a big smile and a headband that says “100% Jesus.” I suppose he’s done this before, but I wasn’t aware of it until now, and I thought “Just out of curiosity, I wonder if this incredibly famous Brazilian is Protestant or Catholic. Hm, could be either.”
So I did a quick search and found a blog post, not a newsy thing or anything professional, but it’s an interesting story about how Neymar had at one time criticized a Scottish football club for being anti-Catholic, not so long ago its official policy was to bar Catholics from joining their team. (Rangers, the second most successful club in Scotland, boo this team). He also mentioned how their fans are known to engage in racist chants, and racism has no place in the sport (although in practice this is done quite a lot in the sport) but mostly he was criticizing their anti-Catholic policies of the past and their general attitude of religious intolerance. The author of the blog post said Neymar is Catholic. I thought okay, cool, go Neymar. I scroll down to the comments, all these people are saying “That’s not right, Neymar is Protestant.” I’m thinking These are comments on a blog post, what do they really know. I thought about leaving it- then I decided to find a better source.
So here’s a better source, from Bloomberg.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-14/neymar-s-religion-helps-ease-burden-amid-concern-of-divisiveness
The highlights: When Neymar was 14, Pastor Newton Lobato Filho of his Pentecostal church (one of 70 churches in the regional Peniel Pentecostal ministry) asked him to stand up, then told him that God had informed him of something. You will grow up to be one of the finest soccer players in the world, because this is what happens when you’re at a Pentecostal church.
No, seriously, that is not entirely atypical.
He was right, though. While still barely a teenager, Neymar started making some money. 800 in Brazil’s currency, and 80 went to the church. Then 400,000, so the family gave 40,000 to the church (which is enough to buy a car). Then he gets picked up by Barcelona and we’re not talking Brazilian currency anymore, we’re talking about millions of Euros, followed shortly by millions in endorsements. Have you seen his endorsements? His salary is 32 million for 2016. His total earnings from endorsements is 114 million. There might be one or two athletes in the entire world that make more from endorsements (and one of them is a teammate at Barca). And then the Neymar family could not be reached for comment on how much of that is being tithed.
Still though, I think it’s great to see a world class athlete with this much visibility who’s in the habit of putting his faith out there. And I’m also pleased to see that his comments on the Catholic Church have been positive enough for some people to assume that he is Catholic.
This article goes on to talk about divisiveness involving football and religion in Brazil too, coinciding with the emergence of a group called Atleto de Cristo in 1984. It seems to be a heavily Protestant group, and it also seems to have caused a bit off internal division on certain Brazilian football teams. More information on that here.
theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/apr/09/world-cup-2014-hand-of-god-brazil-fred-christian
The group was founded by Baltazar, a footballer, a striker, and a one-name-only national hero whose outspoken faith earned him the nickname “God’s striker.” He’s the Reggie White of not-American football. However, internal divisiveness due to differing religious affiliations is blamed by many for Brazil’s disappointing showing in the 1990 World Cup. They figured things out over the next four years though, and in 1994 (Hosted in the USA!) Brazil celebrated mightily when they got their first WC win in 24 years. Hooray! And the whole team would pray together on the field. A source from the team who wishes to remain nameless is quoted as saying it’s best to have a certain amount of discretion and privacy, and working that out helps with team chemistry. Something very much like that.
Other well-known members of Atleto de Cristo include Jorginho (one of the first members, later an assistant manager for the 2010 team), Kaka (now playing for OCSC in MLS and earning one of the highest salaries in the league), and Fred. Oh, Fred, there’s a story.
Despite being another one-name-only player, Fred was almost as well known for his antics off the field. Think about what Ryan Lochte just did in Rio, and that’s the sort of thing Fred was known to do on a fairly regular basis. Along with a lot of womanizing, oh so much of that. Then he became a born again Christian, someone snapped a picture of him at the International Evangelical Community in Rio, and his manager at the time Renato Gaucho, who barely slowed down from his own checkered past, had this to say.
“Is he going to church now? Well that would make me a priest then because we are both up to the same shenanigans…(bahahaha!)
It kills me to hear he’s an ‘Atleto de Cristo’ now.” (More laughter, bahaha).
Fred’s been known to wear bilingual religious shirts since then. It’s been a couple of years now, and the light digging I’ve done hasn’t turned up any further controversy so far.
There was one other good story about a Catholic that I ran across. Amid the comparatively-non-sectarian team prayer sessions back in 2002 (another WC win for Brazil, yay rah), then-manager Luiz Felipe Scolari would bring around a statue of Mary and bless the team with it in the dressing room. And the statue came with him to the Portugal job after that.
That’s about it from me so far. I thought I would share a bit of what I ran across, if anyone else has stories or comments about religious expression in Brazilian sport I’d be happy to hear about it.
So I did a quick search and found a blog post, not a newsy thing or anything professional, but it’s an interesting story about how Neymar had at one time criticized a Scottish football club for being anti-Catholic, not so long ago its official policy was to bar Catholics from joining their team. (Rangers, the second most successful club in Scotland, boo this team). He also mentioned how their fans are known to engage in racist chants, and racism has no place in the sport (although in practice this is done quite a lot in the sport) but mostly he was criticizing their anti-Catholic policies of the past and their general attitude of religious intolerance. The author of the blog post said Neymar is Catholic. I thought okay, cool, go Neymar. I scroll down to the comments, all these people are saying “That’s not right, Neymar is Protestant.” I’m thinking These are comments on a blog post, what do they really know. I thought about leaving it- then I decided to find a better source.
So here’s a better source, from Bloomberg.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-14/neymar-s-religion-helps-ease-burden-amid-concern-of-divisiveness
The highlights: When Neymar was 14, Pastor Newton Lobato Filho of his Pentecostal church (one of 70 churches in the regional Peniel Pentecostal ministry) asked him to stand up, then told him that God had informed him of something. You will grow up to be one of the finest soccer players in the world, because this is what happens when you’re at a Pentecostal church.
No, seriously, that is not entirely atypical.
He was right, though. While still barely a teenager, Neymar started making some money. 800 in Brazil’s currency, and 80 went to the church. Then 400,000, so the family gave 40,000 to the church (which is enough to buy a car). Then he gets picked up by Barcelona and we’re not talking Brazilian currency anymore, we’re talking about millions of Euros, followed shortly by millions in endorsements. Have you seen his endorsements? His salary is 32 million for 2016. His total earnings from endorsements is 114 million. There might be one or two athletes in the entire world that make more from endorsements (and one of them is a teammate at Barca). And then the Neymar family could not be reached for comment on how much of that is being tithed.
Still though, I think it’s great to see a world class athlete with this much visibility who’s in the habit of putting his faith out there. And I’m also pleased to see that his comments on the Catholic Church have been positive enough for some people to assume that he is Catholic.
This article goes on to talk about divisiveness involving football and religion in Brazil too, coinciding with the emergence of a group called Atleto de Cristo in 1984. It seems to be a heavily Protestant group, and it also seems to have caused a bit off internal division on certain Brazilian football teams. More information on that here.
theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/apr/09/world-cup-2014-hand-of-god-brazil-fred-christian
The group was founded by Baltazar, a footballer, a striker, and a one-name-only national hero whose outspoken faith earned him the nickname “God’s striker.” He’s the Reggie White of not-American football. However, internal divisiveness due to differing religious affiliations is blamed by many for Brazil’s disappointing showing in the 1990 World Cup. They figured things out over the next four years though, and in 1994 (Hosted in the USA!) Brazil celebrated mightily when they got their first WC win in 24 years. Hooray! And the whole team would pray together on the field. A source from the team who wishes to remain nameless is quoted as saying it’s best to have a certain amount of discretion and privacy, and working that out helps with team chemistry. Something very much like that.
Other well-known members of Atleto de Cristo include Jorginho (one of the first members, later an assistant manager for the 2010 team), Kaka (now playing for OCSC in MLS and earning one of the highest salaries in the league), and Fred. Oh, Fred, there’s a story.
Despite being another one-name-only player, Fred was almost as well known for his antics off the field. Think about what Ryan Lochte just did in Rio, and that’s the sort of thing Fred was known to do on a fairly regular basis. Along with a lot of womanizing, oh so much of that. Then he became a born again Christian, someone snapped a picture of him at the International Evangelical Community in Rio, and his manager at the time Renato Gaucho, who barely slowed down from his own checkered past, had this to say.
“Is he going to church now? Well that would make me a priest then because we are both up to the same shenanigans…(bahahaha!)
It kills me to hear he’s an ‘Atleto de Cristo’ now.” (More laughter, bahaha).
Fred’s been known to wear bilingual religious shirts since then. It’s been a couple of years now, and the light digging I’ve done hasn’t turned up any further controversy so far.
There was one other good story about a Catholic that I ran across. Amid the comparatively-non-sectarian team prayer sessions back in 2002 (another WC win for Brazil, yay rah), then-manager Luiz Felipe Scolari would bring around a statue of Mary and bless the team with it in the dressing room. And the statue came with him to the Portugal job after that.
That’s about it from me so far. I thought I would share a bit of what I ran across, if anyone else has stories or comments about religious expression in Brazilian sport I’d be happy to hear about it.
