This chapter talks about the Top Hats, also known as the Cartolas. The Top Hats were scoundrels who managed the Brazilian soccer clubs. They were the ones who did the “dirty work” for the club. They claimed to not get paid a salary, and that they did the work because of how much they loved the club. In all actuality, they were stealing money for their own selfish benefits. In this chapter I found that it dealt with a great deal of the Brazilian economy and how it relates to soccer.
The author Foer travels to Brazil and writes about how the corruption of soccer and politics work over there and the events that are entailed. I also found that there was a stronger power struggle along the government and how it is majorly destroying their economy. With that being said, how does soccer explain the survival of this? Well like we have learned throughout the multiple chapters and reading this semester, soccer consists of many clubs. These clubs are filled with people that come from a negative backgrounds looking for something to be passionate about. These people find their passion in soccer so they become part of these clubs, they become top hats.
These top hats have an uncontrollable desire for their team to succeed and they are willing to go to any extent to make sure that it happens. This brings an excessive amount of violence into the soccer industry. The top hats use the corrupted aspect of soccer on order to survive. Although many people have tried to eliminate the violence in these clubs it some how finds its way back no matter what.
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