São Paulo – Football has changed the world, including in the Arab countries. A webinar held during an event to launch an agreement between the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) and São Paulo Football Club (SPFC) this Monday (7) brought news about the international tendencies in the sport, such as the differential features the 2022 World Cup, to take place in Qatar, will have, the advancements of women’s football in Egypt and the transformation of the sport into an entertainment event.
The former player and captain of the five-time World Cup champion Brazilian national team, Cafu, participated in the event and spoke about the Qatar World Cup, of which he is an ambassador. The webinar occurred on Cafu’s 51st birthday. According to him, the World Cup in Qatar will be different. “It will be possible to watch three matches in a single day because distances are at most one hour,” he said, emphasizing that there will be trains stopping at the stadium gates, all logistics designed for ease of transport so fans can be able to have a fixed base, without the need to change hotels.
Also, in the Arab world, in Egypt, football has been advancing to the female universe. The CEO and founder of Empower Football Academy, Farida Salem, participated in the webinar from the Arab country and talked about her project, a football school for girls in Egypt, focused on women’s empowerment through sport. She says her school has a welcoming and safe environment for girls to feel good and do what they love. For her, football belongs to the community and the public, not the clubs, and children should be encouraged to play sports regardless of gender or nationality.
“I see things very simply, for a 12-year-old, regardless of gender, when we enter the pitch for the first time, if a coach doesn’t help, doesn’t ask a name, favorite school subject, if the family is not supportive, the child won’t feel supported. We need to support our girls because they need this to get into the sport, we need to foster these relationships, and social assistance is vital, especially here in the Arab countries,” said Salem.
Cafu, who maintains a social project, also defended sport as an instrument of inclusion. “Sport is one of the greatest tools for social inclusion in the world because you can integrate the child into society, it gives the sense of belonging and being a citizen, it gives hope, sport does that,” said Cafu. For him, the world today needs education, transparency, and hope for a better future. “We need to prioritize our children in terms of education and culture so they can have a bright future and change our country, change it through sport and cultural exchanges with internationalization,” said the former player.
The mediator at the table on the social impact of football and internationalization was the secretary-general at the ABCC, Tamer Mansour. He congratulated the unprecedented partnership between the club and the organization, which aims to internationalize São Paulo FC and make the club better known in Arab countries. “We are going to strengthen the bonds between Arabs and Brazilians in what they like most after doing business: playing football!” said Mansour.
Transformations in the pandemic
Changes are also taking place in the consumption of sport in general as entertainment. At a roundtable on technology transforming football, spoke the vice president of the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism), Hamad Bin Mejren, the founder of the sports channel EPL World Sports Media, Abdulla Al Hammadi, and the marketing director at São Paulo FC, Eduardo Toni, moderated by the Marketing & Content director at the ABCC, Silvana Gomes. Toni reported that sport is being sought more and more as entertainment and, thus, its events are no longer just sporting events. The COVID-19 pandemic and the use of technology such as digital platforms have accelerated this.
Al Hammadi, who is from the UAE, informed that, without new football matches, his channel started to retrieve old matches from past World Cups and other championships and launched polls and contests on social networks to provide more engagement. “At the beginning of the pandemic, we lost a lot of engagement, but we started making polls, and it went viral; it worked out well,” he said. He emphasized the importance of having information from the Brazilian teams in English and Arabic so the audience in Arab countries can consume this content.
Bin Mejren said that, even with the pandemic, tourism in Dubai grew by 3% last year. He stated that Dubai uses the football platform to promote tourism and encourage people to know the emirate. “We invite players and European teams to come to Dubai, to training camps, we organize friendly matches. For us, the people of the UAE and the Arab world, football is extremely popular; we love football,” he declared. “Another point that Brazilians and Arabs have in common, the passion for football,” said Silvana Gomes.
At the end of the event, Cafu received gifts from São Paulo FC and the ABCC for his birthday. The president at the ABCC, Osmar Chohfi, and the president at São Paulo FC, Julio Casares, signed the memorandum of understanding for the internationalization. The event’s master of ceremonies was Ana Cristina Oliveira. The director and the manager at São Paulo FC’s Internationalization Department, Gabriel Abouchar and Camilla Prando, respectively, also participated.
Read more about the event:
São Paulo FC pursuing recognition among Arabs
Watch the full event:
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
