CNN
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Just days before Brazil’s national elections on Sunday, soccer star Neymar Jr. can be seen in a campaign video supporting Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
The Paris Saint-Germain forward and Brazil captain appeared in a TikTok video singing Bolsonaro’s campaign jingle, in which, in reference to the Brazilian president’s official voting number, he “votes, votes and ‘confirm’ for 22, that is Bolsonaro” presses .
The video was also posted on Neymar’s personal TikTok account on Thursday.
Neymar’s confirmation comes a day after Bolsonaro visited the footballer’s non-profit organization Instituto Projeto Neymar Jr. in Sao Paulo state.
The video of Bolsonaro touring the institute, which aims to create opportunities for low-income families and children in the city of Praia Grande through educational and sports initiatives, was posted on the institute’s official Twitter account.
Despite being unable to meet the president in person, Neymar sent him a video message from Paris, where he had just played in a friendly with the Brazil national team and helped secure a 5-1 win over Tunisia, Brazil’s last game before the World Cup in Qatar later this year.
However, Neymar’s statement of support has drawn criticism, with Brazilian comedian Yuri Marçal drawing attention to Bolsonaro’s historically antagonistic relationship with Indigenous Brazilians.
In response to the criticism he has received for his support of Bolsonaro, Neymar tweeted on Friday: “They talk about democracy and much more, but if someone disagrees, they are attacked by the very people who talk about democracy. Imagine that.”
The Brazil team’s distinctive yellow jersey is a symbol that unites the country through love of football and national pride, but in recent years the jersey has been embraced by right-wing Bolsonaro supporters, who wear it at protests and rallies to show their political allegiance to show Brazil’s president has provoked controversy.
Walter Casagrande, former soccer player for the Brazilian national team and the Corinthians club from São Paulo, remembers the feeling of scoring a goal in his first game with the “Selecao” in the yellow jersey in 1985.
“It was a magical thing,” Casagrande told CNN Sport in 2020, “like an enchanted object that gave me great emotions.
“Now I consider the Brazilian yellow jersey hijacked and appropriated by the right wing, so we cannot use it,” added Casagrande, whose sentiments lie to the left of the political divide.
Casagrande said that for him the power of the yellow shirt was that it represented democracy and freedom.
“Brazil seems awful to the world right now,” he said two years ago. “For the first time in my life I see the yellow jersey being used against democracy and freedom.”
Neymar’s support for Bolsonaro could be timely given a nationwide opinion poll released on Thursday that says former Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is 14 points ahead of the incumbent president for the first round of voting in the country’s upcoming presidential election on October 2 .
The Datafolha Institute’s nationwide poll, published by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, shows that Lula would win 50% of the vote versus Bolsonaro’s 36%, excluding invalid and blank votes and undecided voters.
Whoever gets 50% plus one vote would win the election outright without the need for a runoff on the second ballot.
In 2014, on the eve of the first-round presidential election, Neymar recorded a video declaring his support for Aécio Neves of the centrist PSDB party, who was defeated in the second round by Dilma Rousseff of the left-wing Labor Party.
In 2010, Neymar published his meeting with Lula, then president, on his social networks.
“Me and Paulo Henrique Ganso just met the President of the Republic, very cool! It will be marked for the rest of your life!” he wrote at the time.
Neymar’s fellow striker Lucas Moura also recently came out in support of Bolsonaro on the Cara a Tapa podcast, saying: “I don’t see a perfect presidential candidate, but I can’t deny that Bolsonaro is the closest I can think of.”
Lula recently received a vote of confidence from Brazil’s biggest pop star, Anitta, and has also garnered widespread support from celebrities overseas, including US actors Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover, and British musician Roger Waters.