Brazil Prez condemns football racism, to make it world cup theme

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff has reiterated her concern about racism in football after a spate of incidents involving Brazilian players and officials. In comments posted on Twitter, Rousseff lent her support to former Brazil international midfielder Arouca, who was racially abused by a fan while representing Santos against Mogi Mirim in the Sao Paulo state championship March 6, Xinhua reported Monday. [caption id=“attachment_1426815” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The world cup has been besieged with problems: Reuters[/caption] “It’s inadmissable that Brazil, the country with the largest black population out of Africa, has racism issues,” Rousseff said. Last week’s incident came a day after racist chants were directed at referee Marcio Chagas da Silva during the Rio de Janeiro state championship match between Esportivo and Veranopolis. Rousseff also pledged to make anti-racism a theme of this year’s World Cup. “We are going to take on racism. We have agreed with the UN and FIFA that this will be a World Cup against racism.” IANS