Sports journalism, supporters and new technologies: challenging the usual complicity between media and football institutions

Grounded on the analysis of the campaign #ForaRicardoTeixeira (Get Out Ricardo Teixeira), this article investigates how supporters have used new technologies to challenge controversial decisions of media outlets that hold sports broadcast rights in not covering or under-reporting the severity of scandals involving sports governing bodies and leaders. Adopting a combination of political economy and discursive analysis, this work explores how the interplay between media system and football industry in Brazil led to the perpetuation of a complicity relationship between the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and Grupo Globo, broadcast rights holder of the main football events since the 1970s in Brazil. Such complicity guaranteed that many corruption allegations against Teixeira during his 23 years running CBF received little attention in the news programming of Globo. In 2011, when the company decided not to cover the ISL case (at that time a still ongoing Swiss investigation that implicated Teixeira in an extensive scheme of corruption and bribery), Brazilian supporters organised themselves to create the campaign, which for many observers was indeed one of the factors that pressed Teixeira to resign from his post in 2012. The campaign had several merits, including its effective use of decentralised media production tools. However, its main pitfall was its personalised focus on Teixeira, which prevented a broader thematisation of the structural problems of football.