Esporte e Relações Internacionais: a diplomacia futebolística como ferramenta de soft power – o caso do Brasil

Abstract

Cultural phenomenon that cuts across generations, sport has arisen from the beginning of the twenty-century onwards as an important component of international arena, assumption considered of paramount relevance to this thesis. Thus, analyzing football, the most valuable sport in the whole world, and its political implications in the International Relations scenario are mandatory. Herein, we can clearly identify that football assumes a key role as political tool that provides for power to a plethora of States, acting as a strong foreign policy tool and inserted in the countries’ diplomatic precepts. It should have not been forgotten that football, as an instrument of power in international relations, is widely used by countries in order to propagandize its values and interests, support governments, spill over some positive images, and strengthen nationalist feelings. At last but not least this research aims to develop a new diplomatic practice named football diplomacy characterized as a soft power issue either analyzing how Brazil, the only country that was able to win The FIFA World Cup for five times and the host country of FIFA 2014 World Cup, has been using football – one of this greatest source of brazilian soft power – since the Lula’s Administration in its international relations and the benefits acquired from this politics.