A Racial Wrangle in Brazil Rouses Crowds Far Beyond Soccer Field

Argentine soccer player Leandro Desabato was led off the field in handcuffs two days ago and thrown into a dingy Sao Paulo jail over an alleged racist insult against a black Brazilian player made in the heat of sporting battle.

Desabato was freed Friday and he returned home to Buenos Aires. But that did little to calm a growing cultural and diplomatic row between the traditional South American rivals.

The incident occurred just before halftime in Wednesday’s game between Sao Paulo and the Argentine team Quilmes in Sao Paulo’s Morumbi stadium. The contest was part of the first round of the Copa Libertadores, South America’s soccer championship series.

Desabato allegedly hurled a graphic slur at a Sao Paulo player who is known, like many Brazilians, by a single name, Grafite. Then Grafite shoved Desabato in the face. The referee expelled both players for fighting.

After taking a shower in the locker room, Grafite said, he conferred with police and legal officials and decided to file a complaint. Shortly after the game ended in a 3-1 victory for Sao Paulo, a paper-waving Brazilian judicial official arrived to place Desabato under arrest for “slander aggravated by discrimination.”

Racial insults are against the law in Brazil and Argentina, though the latter is known as one of the least ethnically tolerant places in Latin America.

Argentina’s sports community was up in arms over the arrest. The country has a minuscule black population and racial attitudes here often seem a throwback to an earlier time. When Argentina played Nigeria in the 1996 Olympic gold medal match in Atlanta, a front-page headline in the Buenos Aires sports tabloid Ole declared: “The Monkeys Are Coming.”

Quilmes officials denied that Desabato had used racial slurs against Grafite. Brazilian officials said that while in custody, the Argentine player had confessed but said he did not know that such insults were criminal actions.

A Sao Paulo judge ordered Desabato held on bail of about $4,000. Quilmes officials withdrew money from a Sao Paulo bank Thursday to pay Desabato’s bail -- but because of that giant city’s notorious traffic, they could not get the money to the court until Friday.

“He’s being held like a common thief, an assassin, in the worst conditions,” Quilmes coach Gustavo Alfaro said Friday morning. “This is absurd and unjust.”

Many Argentine commentators and officials agreed.

“Insults are common at the stadiums, and you can’t see it as discrimination when it’s said on the field, where there’s so much adrenaline involved,” Interior Minister Anibal Fernandez told Radio Mitre. “The game generates tension.”

The incident is part of the spread of racial tension at soccer matches worldwide. The many Afro-Brazilian players who ply their trade abroad are often the targets of bigoted heckling. For some Brazilians, then, the sight of a foreigner taken away to jail for spewing hateful words was worthy of celebration.

“This serves as an example to the European countries, where soccer fans have been increasingly racist and no one faces tough legal action,” Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Globo said in an editorial.

For many Brazilians, Grafite has become something of a hero, the man who finally stood up and said he wouldn’t take it anymore. “Leader of a Race,” read the headline of one Brazilian sports daily.

Sao Paulo’s black players endured 90 minutes of racist chants from thousands of Argentine fans when the two teams met last month in Quilmes, a Buenos Aires suburb.

“I had already been sworn at in the first match” in Buenos Aires, Grafite told Brazilian reporters. Every time he neared the stands, he was spat upon. Fans chanted, “Monkey!” and other insults.

So when Desabato said something similar on the field Wednesday, Grafite recalled, “I wasn’t going to accept it in my house.”

Desabato is a journeyman defender who does not have a reputation as an especially dirty player. Quilmes officials said he and Grafite had traded jerseys in a traditional display of sportsmanship at the end of the March game and that they seemed to be on good terms before Wednesday’s conflict.

“I know that he has a family and that he spent a night in jail,” Grafite said of Desabato. “But I defended my rights as a citizen.”

The Buenos Aires newspaper Clairn reported that Desabato was held in a facility of “shadowy passageways,” where the walls were pocked with bullet holes from “several prison uprisings.”

Ole’s front page included a photograph of Desabato in handcuffs and the headline “Hell in Brazil.”

Friday evening, Desabato boarded a plane home. It was unclear whether he would have to return to Brazil to face trial on the charge. His team’s loss may have guaranteed its elimination from the tournament.

In two months, Argentina’s national team will host Brazil in the continent’s biggest soccer game this year, a match that has suddenly taken on a new significance.

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Times staff writer Paula Gobbi in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.