The Legend of Dr Sócrates: The Last Great Political Footballer
Socrates, who captained Brazil to both the ‘82 & ‘86 World Cups, was a socialist. So let’s talk about the Brazilian playmaker who went to Italy so that he could “read Gramsci in original language and study the history of the workers’ movement.”
Growing up amidst Brazil’s military dictatorship, Socrates recalled watching his father burn Bolshevik books in fear of arrest. Socrates never planned to become a footballer, only signing his first professional contract after finishing a medical degree.
In 1978 he moved to Corinthians FC and founded. Corinthians Democracy, fighting for the Club’s structures to be made completely democratic. At that point, a repressive system called ‘concentracao’ dominated Brazilian football controlling player’s every move. Within the club, Socrates fought for an alternative democratic model which assigned the same value to the kitman as it did the star striker.
Before long, every decision was made by equal vote of players & staff from transfers to training dates. Win bonuses were split equally and a proportion shared among staff. But this model made waves far beyond the pitch. In 1982, Corinthians played with ‘I Want to Vote for My President’ emblazened on their shirts. By that point, Brazil’s military Junta had already murdered hundreds of people. A year later, the team held banners which read “Win or lose but always with democracy”.
A member of the Workers Party (PT), in 1982 Socrates stood alongside Lula da Silva in Sao Paulo at a rally of over 2m people. On stage, Socrates committed to leave Brazilian football if the regime failed to transition to democracy. The next year he went to play in Italy.
1986 saw the World Cup take place in Mexico, but so too the US’ brutal bombing of Lybia. Socrates took the field wearing a headband which read ‘Yes to Love, No to Terror’, condemning the actions of the imperialist state which had enabled the imposition of military rule in his own country decades earlier. A supporter of boh the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions, Socrates named his one of his son’s Fidel.
The lessons that football today can learn from the likes of Socrates are endless, least of all a firm belief that football is a site of struggle and cannot be divorced from the broader socialist project. We cannot leave out politics at the turnstyles.
“I see football as art. Today most people see football as a competition, a confrontation, a war between two polar opposites… but to start with, it is a great form of art.”
– Sócrates
