In early August, Globo released a list for journalists of nearly 100 names of people associated with the channel’s coverage of the World Cup in Qatar. The name of Fernanda Gentil, already prominent in coverage of other World Cups, is not on the list, media has speculated, despite coming from the entertainment core rather than sport. However, the presenter, who has been off the air for eight months, will return to the sporting event.
In an exclusive conversation with this column from syringesFernanda, ignored by Globo, says she will take a personal project to the World Cup and doesn’t rule out it being used by the broadcaster.
“I’m going to Qatar, not for the whole cup, but for a certain period of time. I’m doing a project that I wrote. The idea was born for my social networks, but of course it can have consequences for Globo,” says the moderator .
When asked if Globo ever considered her name for the World Cup, or if she herself wouldn’t have asked to be a part of that coverage since it won’t air, Gentil says:
“Of course I won’t do the role I played when it was all about the sport because I’m not alone in sport anymore. But with all my history in this context and my passion for the subject, I have a lot of plans for the Worlds period and I’m really excited to be able to explore even more beyond the four lines in this edition of the Worlds.”
“Far from being a gap year”
Fernanda Gentil, as this Splash column shows, has become something of a “pineapple” within Globo. On the air since December, with the end of “Zig Zag Arena”, the network does not know what to do with it. In the media, this period was referred to as a “gap year”, and the moderator disagrees:
2022 should be at most a year without a program presentation, but it is far from a sabbatical.
Fernanda tells what she did:
It’s been a year of hard work internally at Globo, also on the internet in my networks, not just with advertising but with authoring projects, test formats, languages and scripts that I love. For the time being this year I killed the longing for the TV screen by participating in soap operas and other programs, but I hope to end it once and for all soon.