Soccer: 'Just control it' - the power behind Brazil

The Nike deal raises questions about the role of corporates. TIM VICKERY reports.

It will probably remain forever one of the biggest mysteries in world football. Since July 12, 1998, acres of newsprint and hour upon hour of broadcasting time have been devoted to the question of whether Ronaldo should have played in the World Cup final against France and who decided that he should play.

The world's greatest footballer, taking the field just hours after he had suffered a fit, was a shadow of himself as Brazil were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by the hosts.

To add to the mystery, his name had not appeared on the original team-sheet published shortly before kick-off.

The question that has been repeatedly asked since that day concerns Nike, whose shirt deal with Brazil is the most lucrative in the world between a sportswear manufacturer and a national football team.

Did Nike put pressure on Brazil to include Ronaldo for their own commercial reasons? The company said at the time that it was "absurd and insulting" to suggest it had influenced team selection. While the current inquiry by the Brazilian Congress into the Nike deal has not provided a definitive answer, the inquiry has revealed how great a say Nike have in the national team's affairs.

The biggest revelation has been that Mario Zagallo, the national coach during the World Cup, had been on an individual contract with Nike for a year up until the World Cup finals. Zagallo's own role in the selection of Ronaldo has been the subject of much debate and that he was on Nike's payroll can only add weight to accusations that the sportswear company may have had some input into team selection in France.

Lidio Toledo, Brazil's chief doctor at the World Cup, told the inquiry that one of the reasons why he had cleared Ronaldo to play was that he was afraid of being lynched at home had the striker been ruled out and Brazil defeated.

Edmundo, a member of the squad, told the commission that Ronaldo had woken up unaware that he had suffered a fit.

The doctors were reluctant to tell him and it was only on the insistence of a team-mate, Leonardo, that Ronaldo was taken to hospital. Edmundo, however, is not regarded as the most credible of witnesses.

He is a wayward personality who had a vested interest in whether Ronaldo played or not as he would have been in the starting lineup had Ronaldo not been selected.

On one key point, however, his evidence is backed up by other sources. Edmundo says that Zagallo was told of Ronaldo's problem within 15 minutes.

It was the same story from Toledo, an old friend of Zagallo, and has subsequently been backed up in a press interview by the team captain, Dunga. Zagallo, however, has always insisted that he was sleeping at the time and was only told some three hours afterwards.

When they decided to enter the football market, Nike saw they had to have Brazil, everyone's favourite other team. However, further research left them worried. In Brazil there was no tradition of the national side being in constant activity. The squad were called up for bursts for a World Cup, or Copa America for example.

Part of the deal, therefore, included the Nike tour, five games a year (which time restrictions have since reduced to two) where Brazil would be matched against opponents the company chose. To ensure the spectacle was worthy of the company's investment, eight recognised first-team players had to be included.

Because Nike were concerned that they might not get a fair hearing from the Brazilian legal system, the company reserved the right to take contractual disputes to a court anywhere in the world, while the Brazilian federation could take cases only to Zurich.

The business practices of an especially aggressive multinational, and their apparent lack of trust in their partner, led to an unprecedented corporate level of involvement with a national team.

In theory it looked so simple: Brazil enchant the world with wonderful football; Nike creams off profit and prestige.

Nike's omnipresent airport lounge commercial had helped stoke the myth of a Dream Team something which never, even briefly, presented itself on the field. When the bubble burst the biggest casualty was Ronaldo, whose mind and body gave way under the strain of carrying a wilting team through to the World Cup final.

Caught between modern business pressures and traditional national pride, his broken career is a monument to the dangers of such a potent cocktail.