RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – The right-wing populist president of Brazil wants the football season to resume even though the five-time World Cup-winning country is a hot spot of the coronavirus pandemic.

Brazil is for many synonymous with football and many of the all-time greats, from Pele to Neymar, hail from the nation.

But Brazil is is also the epicentre of Latin America’s coronavirus outbreak.

The death toll from coronavirus in Brazil has hit 27,878, official figures showed on Friday (May 29), surpassing the toll of hard-hit Spain and making it the country with the fifth-highest number of fatalities.

Football has been suspended in Brazil since mid-March but President Jair Bolsonaro recently told Radio Guaiba that footballers would likely not fall very ill with Covid-19.

“As footballers are young athletes, the risk of death if they catch coronavirus would be dramatically reduced,” he said.

Back in March, he also claimed that thanks to his own sporting past he would only suffer a slight cold if he caught the virus.

The leader says his chief motivation for wanting football to get back under way is to curb unemployment and the misery that accompanies it.

“The players have to survive somehow,” he said, explaining that while some top footballers earn a fortune, those from smaller regional leagues need to play “to feed their families”.

The way Brazilian politics works, it is not in Mr Bolsonaro’s remit to restart football. This must be done by the regional states and municipalities.

When football was suspended, seasons at the regional level were under way, but the national championship had been due to start in May and as yet there are no solid plans to begin.

Mr Bolsonaro and one of his sons held meetings on May 19 with the presidents of two Rio super-clubs, Vasco da Gama and Flamengo.

Photos of the pair wearing the shirts of the two clubs stunned social media, with official supporter groups claiming their image had been sold out to politics.

“This is just political intolerance,” said Flamengo president Rodolfo Landim, explaining that Mr Bolsonaro just wants football back as soon as possible and that he himself “is defending the interests of Flamengo”.

The day after the meeting Flamengo were filmed by a TV Globo helicopter breaking the Rio lockdown rules by training without permission.

Rio state Health Secretary Ana Beatriz Bush said the act of defiance set a terrible example.

“Imagine all the young people who see Flamengo training, they’ll want to go out of their homes and that is not possible,” she said.

Rio Mayor Marcelo Crivella, however, has authorised training to resume in June and sees matches taking place behind closed doors some time in July.

Rio’s two other major clubs, Fluminense and Botafogo, are on record as saying that this seems premature.

One of Brazil’s top sports journalists, Mauro Cezar Pereira, of ESPN Brazil also feels it is too soon.

“It reflects the fact that some clubs are deeply in debt and dependent on broadcasting income. The Bundesliga restart intensified the rush. But unlike in Germany, the infection curve is still climbing in Brazil.”

Players may have little say in the matter, with the president of the Internacional club saying that any player refusing to come back to training should instead resign.