The Brazilian football federation keeps getting bad news left and right. First the team was eliminated in the quarter final round of the World Cup by Croatia. Immediately following the game national team head coach Tite resigned his post as the head man. Croatia goes on to lose convincingly to Argentina which means Brazil’s historic rival is once again in a World Cup final. On top of all this the Brazilian FA has to deal with a lawsuit that was filled in Brazil by a local wildlife protection organization over the incident involving a member of the national team’s press staff and a cat.
The video went viral on social media. It depicts one of the members of Brazil’s press staff grabbing a cat that was comfortably laying on the table that star Vinícius Júnior was sitting on to respond to the media at a press conference before the game against Croatia. The man dropped the cat on the floor, and virtually immediately there was a media frenzy over the incident. Vinicius looked perplexed not knowing how to react to the situation. Ultimately the press event continued without any more incidents. Now the FA has to deal with a lawsuit, and this member of Brazil’s staff could be at risk of losing his job.
❌ Repudiable: Vinicius Jr. estaba en conferencia de prensa y un gato apareció en la mesa. Esto hizo el jefe de prensa de la Selección de Brasil 🇧🇷pic.twitter.com/eQCZw6yrfY
— Luciana Rubinska (@LRubinska) December 7, 2022
A Money Grab From An Animal Rights Association
While there’s certainly an argument to be made that the member of the Brazilian press team could’ve handled the situation with a bit more care, we doubt that handling cats is part of his training. Sadly for him his lack of touch and empathy to handle the situation caused quite a PR disaster. Even if all that is true, the lawsuit is quite clearly a money grab by this Brazilian animal rights group. It’s not like any settlement on this lawsuit will lead to the betterment of conditions for cats in Qatar. Which it could be said were the effected party in the incident.
Instead, the Fund for The Environment of Union in Brazil is seeking 200 thousand dollars in reparation payments for the actions taken place by members of the Brazilian national team in Qatar. Clearly, there’s no legal basis for this lawsuit to be able to prosper. Again, it wasn’t a Brazilian cat that was wronged in the event to begin with. The whole move just seems like an effort from the organization to build up enough media pressure on the Brazilian FA to guilt-trip them into sending money to the organization.
How Is This Whole Mess Likely Going To End?
As we mentioned there doesn’t seem to be any true legal grounds that could see this animal rights organization be granted any type of compensation in court. The hope though, at least from the side of the animals rights group, is that the lawsuit pressures the FA into making a generous donation to their cause.
For the Brazilian FA this could actually be a blessing in disguise if they use it right. They could create a full on animal rights campaign maybe with some of the players. In an effort to create a distraction from the fact that the team seemingly underachieved in Qatar. A PR campaign focused on that could buy them some time to find a replacement for Tite, and get people excited about the future of the national team. If Argentina wins the cup it’s going to be hard to take the attention off that. There’s no question that Brazil fans are going to demand answers from the FA. This cat story is likely going to be lost in the ether for the most part.
