BRASILIA, Oct 27, (RTRS): Brazil’s sports minister resigned on Wednesday over a corruption scandal, reviving concern about President Dilma Rousseff’s unstable coalition and the country’s lagging preparations for the 2014 soccer World Cup.
Orlando Silva is the sixth minister to step down this year and the fifth to be forced out over ethics breaches that have become a major headache for Rousseff in her first year in office, though the resignations have bolstered her reputation as a no-nonsense manager who is tough on corruption.
The scandals have strained relations within her disparate coalition and helped put the brakes on a legislative agenda that includes vital bills to spur growth in key sectors of Latin America’s largest economy, such as mining and oil.
Silva had strenuously denied a stream of allegations against him in the media, including that he arranged up to 40 million reais ($23 million) in kickbacks from government contracts to benefit himself and the Communist Party of Brazil, which is part of Rousseff’s government.
“I decided to leave the government so I can defend my honor,” Silva told reporters after meeting with Rousseff on Wednesday evening.
Only last Friday, Rousseff said she was backing Silva to continue in his post. But she changed her stance after the Supreme Court decided this week to open an investigation into allegations of corruption at the sports ministry.

The string of resignations this year have so far not harmed Rousseff and has even boosted her standing as she taps into growing middle class anger at endemic corruption in Brazil.
She bounced to a 71 percent approval rating in a September opinion poll, apparently gaining from the perception that she is tough on corruption. Many of the graft allegations date to the previous administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who appointed Silva as sports minister in 2006. Rafael Cortez, a political analyst at the Tendencias consultancy in Sao Paulo, said Silva’s relatively swift resignation was likely a positive for Rousseff and would add to the impression that she was being decisive.
“But I think this has a limit,” he added. “At some point it could turn against her if these resignations continue and give the impression she has made bad choices.”
World Cup ramifications
Rousseff is expected to allow the Communist Party to nominate a replacement for Silva from its own ranks, even though it has been implicated in many of the corruption allegations in the sports ministry.
The appointment is a crucial one as the country prepares to host the World Cup and Olympic Games two years later — global events that require massive investment and which Brazil hopes will showcase its emergence as an economic power.
Preparations for the World Cup have faced criticism as the construction of stadiums and transport infrastructure makes slow progress and costs balloon. Silva was the government’s point man for coordinating investments and infrastructure upgrades for the two events.

Government sources said the most likely nominee was Senator Aldo Rebelo, a former minister of institutional relations who has been a vocal critic of corruption in Brazilian soccer. However, one minister said Rousseff may appoint a substitute on an interim basis before deciding on a permanent replacement.
Rebelo’s appointment could raise tensions over the World Cup organization because he has strongly criticized the head of Brazil’s football confederation, Ricardo Teixeira, who is being investigated by federal police over corruption allegations.
Teixeira also leads the Brazilian organizing committee for the 2014 World Cup and is a member of world soccer body FIFA’s ruling executive committee.
The allegations against Silva mostly came from a disgruntled contractor arrested in an investigation into allegedly illegal fund-raising by the Communist Party.
Brazil’s tenacious media have hounded Silva with new allegations almost daily since accusations were first published by weekly magazine Veja earlier this month.
Silva was accused of personally taking delivery of a bundle of cash in the ministry’s garage and of favoring members of the Communist Party in handing out government contracts.
Meanwhile, a British investigative journalist who has accused FIFA of massive corruption has told Brazil’s Senate that the country should freeze corrupt officials from soccer’s governing body out of preparations for the 2014 World Cup.
Andrew Jennings, who has been investigating FIFA for a decade, said the involvement of its top brass in the next World Cup after allegations they had taken millions of dollars in bribes would be a stain on the soccer celebration.

“It’s time the government said to FIFA, you stink, you smell, we don’t want our president to be photographed with these crooks,” Jennings told a Senate committee which had invited him to present his evidence of fraud at FIFA.
Jennings said Brazil should take responsibility for the preparations away from senior FIFA officials, including Teixeira, head of Brazil’s football confederation and the nation’s front man for World Cup preparations. He says Teixeira may have amassed $9.5 million in bribes from now-defunct FIFA marketing firm ISL.
“It is in the best interests of your country to get these people out and appoint honest bureaucrats and clean people to run the World Cup,” he said.
Jennings featured in an investigative report by BBC’s Panorama programme that accused Teixeira and former FIFA president Joao Havelange of taking millions of dollars in bribes from ISL to retain the company as FIFA’s sole official marketer.
He says Havelange, who is Brazilian, may have amassed $50 million or more in bribes through a facade company called Sicuretta.

Jennings also says he has evidence that it was Teixeira and Havelange who ended a Swiss legal investigation into the case by paying 2.5 million Swiss francs ($2.9 million) to charity and confessing in writing to taking bribes.
Teixeira, who is facing a Brazilian federal police investigation related to the case, has denied the allegations. The BBC said that Havelange did not respond to its request for a comment.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced a long-awaited anti-corruption plan last Friday that included a pledge to re-open the case into ISL’s collapse.
Jennings said the Swiss judiciary would likely release documents related to the case in the next 12 months and added that Brazil should submit a separate request to obtain them.
“It could take up to 12 months. Then you will have a massive international scandal hanging over your World Cup, two Brazilians and President Blatter,” Jennings told the Senate committee on Wednesday.
He also said Brazil should refuse Blatter and others entry visas to Brazil. Blatter is due to visit Brazil in November to finalise details of legislative changes needed to host the World Cup, including ticket pricing and trademark rights.
FIFA’s request that legally enshrined half-price ticket rights for elderly Brazilians and students be overruled for the World Cup has sparked a backlash in Congress, which must pass the legislation.
“Who are these Neanderthal bums from Switzerland to come and tell you that anyone working on the World Cup preparations loses their right to labor protection laws?,” Jennings said