Romário’s journey from football to politics
Someone like Romário needs no introduction. The former Brazilian footballer brought joy to everyone watching him play ‘joga bonito’. The skillful finisher played for clubs like PSV Eindhoven, FC Barcelona and Vasco da Gama, won the World Cup in 1994, and scored 784 goals in professional football. Romário, however, surprised everyone when he went into politics after retiring from the sport. He was a footballer who had a reputation for doing his own thing, missing training sessions, partying until the early mornings and being difficult to coach. Not the typical footballer you would expect to become a politician. So why did he?
In a BBC interview in 2013, Romário acknowledged that he never even considered becoming a politician when he stopped playing his beloved game. But this all changed in 2005 when his daughter Ivy was born with Down Syndrome. ‘’I started spending time with parents, relatives and friends of people who have some kind of disability. I began to realise there was no-one to represent these people in politics, so I decided to stand for election.’’
Romário started his political career at PSB, the Brazilian Socialists Party, in 2010 and was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2011 to 2015. He also worked as President of the Congressional Committee on Sports and Tourism. He took a strong stance against corruption, championed the rights of disabled people and their access to sports and battled against discrimination and the disregard for the Brazilian favelas.
Before the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Romário also spoke about the importance of disabled access to the matches and denounced that the event was immersed in corruption and money laundering.
Senator
In 2014, Romário made a switch in his political career and announced that he was planning to run for the Brazilian senate. Later that year, he was elected with the most votes received ever by a candidate representing the state of Rio de Janeiro. To this day, the former footballer is still the Senator of Rio de Janeiro.
His political associations changed over the last few years, though. In 2017, Romário left PSB and joined Podemos, a centre-right political party. In 2021, he left Podemos and started to affiliate himself with the Liberal Party (PL), which was led by the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro at the time, who shifted the party into right-wing populists. From February 1, 2021, until February 1, 2023, Romário also was the Second Vice President of the Federal Senate.
Coming out of football retirement
Besides working in politics, the 58-year-old also came out of football retirement earlier this year to play on the same team as his son Romarinho. Romário, however, did state that he would only be available to play home matches for his new club America-RJ, which competes in the top tier of the Rio de Janeiro State Football League.
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