Romario scores in politics too

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian football legend Romario has found a new area to keep scoring successes: politics.

The retired striker, who led Brazil to a fourth World Cup title in 1994, stood for a seat in the lower house of the federal Congress in Sunday’s election for the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB).

Running on a platform of promoting sports projects for poor communities and measures to support children with special needs, Romario got almost 150,000 votes and, true to form, celebrated with his advisors, family and friends all night and well into Monday.

FIFA’s 1994 World Player of the Year, who claims by his own controversial count to have scored more than 1,000 goals in his career, sees no limits in his new field.

One of his campaign advisors, Marcio Saraiva, said that the former star for clubs like Barcelona, Valencia, Flamengo and Vasco da Gama could have garnered as many as 800,000 votes had he had a larger campaign treasury.

Romario could even aim for the presidency, Saraiva said.

“Why not?” Saraiva asked, in an interview with Brazilian website IG. “(Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva) started out as a steelworker.”

Romario was the sixth-ranking vote-getter among legislative candidates in the state of Rio de Janeiro, enough to send him to the National Congress in January.

Romario himself reminded IG that he has so far attained every goal he has set himself in life.

“In football, I started in the Olaria children’s team, and I wanted to win the tournament. Then, in the Vasco youth team, I wanted to be the best player and the top scorer,” he recalled.

“I am going to take it step by step. My main goal is to serve the full four years (in Congress) as well as possible.”

Romario has been trying to change his image from the playboy footballer, having been conspicuous for his taste for nightlife and clubbing and infamously averse to training.

Romario says he has matured and is ready to take on the responsibilities of public service.

“My head has changed. I’m a different guy,” he said in an interview shortly before the election. “I am 44. I have learnt. I’m a better father, a better husband, mainly over the past six years.”

Voter Claudio Moraes, a physiotherapist, was sceptical of the new, more serious Romario, pointing out a past conviction for tax evasion.

“How can a guy who doesn’t pay taxes be a legislator?” Moraes asked.

Romario was the most iconic of more than 20 Brazilian sports figures who were on the ballot.

Romario’s former attacking partner on the Brazilian national team, Bebeto, got fewer than 30,000 votes as a candidate for Rio’s state legislature - but squeaked into office on the slate of the Democratic Workers’ Party’s.

Most of the other candidates with sporting fame failed as political candidates.

Former boxing world champion Acelino “Popo” Freitas got 60,338 votes in his home state of Bahia but fell short of a seat in Congress.

Disgraced swimmer Rebeca Gusmao, whose competitive career ended with a lifetime doping ban, ran for the Brasilia state legislature on the Communist Party of Brazil ticket, but as a candidate she sank like a stone, winning a humiliating 437 votes.