ABSTRACT
The world’s attention turned towards Brazil during the decade 2007–16 as Brazil hosted first the 2007 Pan American Games, followed by the 2014 FIFA World Cup and then the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games. These global sporting spectacles placed Brazil, and by extension Latin American sport, at the forefront of the world’s sporting attention. For reasons that are not entirely clear, sports scholars have not paid as much attention to Latin America as other regions in the world. Even with the growing intellectual focus on the globalization of sport, much of the Global South is seen as terra incognita by sport scholars outside Latin America. When invoked, much of the Global South, including Latin America, is placed in a context of subordination or as an afterthought to where the really important action is: Europe, North America and what is blithely called the Global North. Even with the attention focused on Brazil’s global sporting spectacles, the emphasis is on those athletes who might leave Brazil for more lucrative contracts in the Global North. Little consideration is given to the success of Latin American teams or athletes as Latin American. Yes, South American teams were expected to do well in the FIFA World Cup, but beyond that, Latin America apparently does not engage in sport, on a global level at least. There has been only a modicum of scholarly attention to sport in Latin America, most of which is historical in nature (Arbena, 1987; Arbena and LaFrance, 2002; Gaffney, 2008; Mangan and DaCosta, 2002), and none really addresses policy, governance or migration within sport.
