Sun, Feb 09, 2020 page11

• Brazil’s Flamengo try to get past deadly fire

  • AP, RIO DE JANEIRO
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  When Marilia de Barros Silva heard reports that the widely popular Brazilian soccer club Flamengo were signing a player for almost 17 million euros (US$18.6 million), she felt sadness — but also resentment.

  For a year, she has been trying in vain to reach a settlement with the Rio de Janeiro club after her teenage son Arthur Vinicius died in a fire that engulfed his dormitory at the team’s academy for young players.

  De Barros Silva was incredulous over the amount being paid for the team’s new star, she said, adding that the sum dwarfs the amount that she and the public defender’s office had been trying to get Flamengo to pay in compensation for the loss of her son, a promising defender who had played for Brazil’s under-17 team.

  

  Marilia de Barros Silva shows a tattoo on Thursday made from a photograph of her son, Arthur Vinicius, who died in a fire at the Flamengo soccer club training complex in Volta Redonda, Brazil, a year ago.

  Photo: AP

  Saturday marks one year since the fire killed 10 of Flamengo’s academy players, all aged 14 to 16.

  It was the “worst tragedy” in the team’s 124-year history, club president Rodolfo Landim has repeatedly said.

  Against that grim backdrop, Flamengo turned in one of their best seasons in decades.

  The team won the Rio state championship, their first Brazilian national league championship since 2009 and the prestigious Copa Libertadores in a nail-biting final against Argentina’s River Plate.

  Flamengo had not won the South American crown for 38 years.

  However, while their successful season helped them sign several million-dollar deals for players, they have reached compensation agreements with just four of the 10 victims’ families.

  Negotiations with the others seem stalled as the police investigation into possible homicide charges concluded on Friday.

  In a country where one of every five Brazilians is a Flamengo fan, De Barros Silva and other parents wonder when justice — and peace — will come.

  “It’s Flamengo’s insensitivity, of turning that page,” she said at her home in Rio de Janeiro state.

  She and other parents were emotionally destroyed by the club’s lack of empathy, she said.

  Some did not even receive a telephone call from top executives.

  “One person came to my house to bring me a Flamengo T-shirt, gave me [Arthur’s] passport and the Flamengo flag, but didn’t even know Arthur’s name,” she added.

  Documents that emerged shortly after the fire showed that for years the club had flouted city regulations at the training facility, accumulated fines and was targeted by state prosecutors who questioned the treatment given to academy players and the container-like structure in which they were housed.

  Last season, Flamengo saw gross revenue soar to 857 million reais (US$200 million) — the most a Brazilian club has earned in a single year — thanks to sponsors and TV rights.

  On Thursday, police investigating the fire sent their conclusions — in 13 volumes — to the state prosecutors’ office for review.

  As Flamengo looks for another sterling season, the relatives are waiting for prosecutors to conclude their review of the investigation.

  De Barros Silva misses her son most in the evenings, when she usually found time to speak with him by telephone.

  “My gaze goes directly to my watch at 8:50pm — the time I used to catch up with him,” she said.
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