Soccer is like a religion in Brazil and the 2014 World Cup is offering inmates in the South American host nation a shot at redemption.
“My life has changed direction,” said sun-beaten Thiago Ferreira, a 26-year-old convicted drug trafficker who is helping renovate the Belo Horizonte soccer stadium, which will host a number of World Cup games.
Ferreira, who joined a state reintegration program, said he regretted his drug-dealing days and regarded his new job — he looks after the tools on the site — as “a great second chance” to rebuild his life.
Photo: AFP
Under an agreement between the Brazilian government and local authorities in the 12 cities hosting 2014 World Cup games, at least 5 percent of the workers building or renovating the stadiums must be prisoners.
The inmates are selected after a rigorous evaluation process by a group of social workers, lawyers and psychologists.
In Belo Horizonte, capital of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, Ferreira is one of 16 inmates from a local prison selected to work on the stadium alongside almost 1,500 other workers.
Photo: AFP
Every morning, he wakes up at 4am to help complete the renovation of the the 67,000-seat Mineirao stadium by the deadline late this year.
Once finished, the stadium will host the FIFA Confederations Cup next year and the World Cup the following year.
For three days of work, each inmate earns one day off his sentence.
“For us who are in the semi-open prison regime, this is a great opportunity that we must seize because a life of crime has only two possible outcomes: the wheelchair or six feet under,” Ferreira said.
After two years and five months in jail, he cannot wait to walk free next month and continue working at the Mineirao arena, where he is paid about 250 euros (US$320) a month, slightly above the minimum wage.
With that pay, he can support his wife, his one-month-old son and his mother.
“I hope to show my son all that I went through so that he does not make the same mistakes, and to give him all the things I did not have in my life,” said Ferreira, who was entitled to conjugal visits, proudly showing pictures of his baby boy on his cellphone.
At 11am workers leave the rubble of the Mineirao and drop their tools in the shed run by Ferreira, turning the area into a makeshift cafeteria.
Francisco das Chagas Queiroz, who spent 17 years in jail for a bank robbery, is one of this month’s model employees and has been rewarded for his efficiency and devotion to duty by being put in charge of logistics.
The 52-year-old Queiroz sees the recognition from his supervisors as “a great honor” and hopes to continue working on the site when he completes his sentence.
“It is clear I came here to make a difference. And with God’s help, I succeeded and they appreciate my work. I was promoted after 12 days to help coordinate things,” Queiroz said. “Work on the [stadium] reconstruction is an honor. To be valued in a big company is something that makes you feel good.”
Queiroz expressed no remorse over his past crimes, saying: “I am what I am because of the difficulties I went through.”
The former shopkeeper has a punishing daily schedule, starting work at the stadium at 5am, going to nursing school at 6pm, before returning to his cell close to midnight.
Reminiscing about his past, he said he began stealing in the 1980s when he was battling the military dictatorship, which held power from 1964 to 1985.
He said that in 1977 to 1978, he knew Dilma Rousseff, then a Marxist guerrilla and now Brazil’s first woman president.
“She was awesome,” Queiroz said admiringly. “She risked her life for others.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier