A shot of the video of soccer player Neymar Jair supporting Bolsonaro.neymarjr (RR. SS.)
Jair Bolsonaro has reason to celebrate in the last election campaign for the Brazilian presidency. Neymar, his country’s top football star, this Thursday uploaded a video on his TikTok account, where he has more than eight million followers, asking for the voice of the leader of the extreme right. The player doesn’t speak to the camera, but gestures briskly over a song that says, “Choose, vote, and confirm: 22, it’s Bolsonaro.” 22 is the number, the voters who decide to re-elect the president , must vote in the electronic ballot box. It’s been a bout of unpredictable election fallout when there’s only three days left for elections. The video also coincided with the broadcast of a Datafolha poll that gave Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a victory with 50% of valid votes, enough to win the first round with the minimum.
Neymar’s video, which lasts less than 15 seconds, caught fire like wildfire on Bolsonarist’s social media. The President replied in his official report: and also his sons Eduardo Bolsonaro, MP and Senator Flávio. On Neymar’s TikTok account alone, he had added 7.4 million views in less than two hours.
“Hexa-Reelection; Okay Neymar,” President Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter. “Re-Elect” by your; “Hexa” for the six-time championship that the Brazilian team will be aiming for at the World Cup in Qatar.
Bolsonaro did not appear in public this Thursday. He preferred to focus on preparing for today’s debate, the last he will have face-to-face with Lula before Sunday’s session. But he had already sown the seeds of Neymar support. It took just 24 hours for him to reap the rewards of Wednesday’s visit to the Neymar Jr. Foundation’s headquarters, where the player is helping dozens of underprivileged children in southern São Paulo.
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The French PSG player did not accompany the president because he was in Tunisia where he was attending a game played by the Brazilian team. However, he sent him a thank you video in which he avoided explicitly supporting his candidacy. “I appreciate your illustrious view. I really wanted to be with you, but unfortunately I’m far away. Next time we will be together,” Neymar Bolsonaro said in a recorded message.
Neymar has been showing himself close to the leader of the extreme right for some time, but he has never explained his voice like this. Last August, he gave him a signed ball. And in 2018, after news of Bolsonaro’s triumph, he asked “that God can use him in any way to help our country”. The footballer last sided with a candidate in 2014 when he backed Aécio Neves, the centre-right candidate who eventually lost in those elections in the second round to Dilma Rousseff, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s candidate.
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