Football and eugenics in Brazilian society during the first half of the 20th century: enhancing the ‘national race’

This paper addresses key questions regarding football, gender and national identity in the emerging Republic of Brazil during the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries. It examines how eugenics ideology became intertwined with the sport to forge an identity based on the ‘enhancement of the national race’. In doing so, eugenics emerged as a force promoting social exclusion, rooted in so-called scientific concepts of race and gender. We employed historical newspaper archives as primary sources to support our findings. The evidence indicates that football served as the flagship sport for the state to disseminate eugenic ideals of health and a ‘superior race’. Moreover, our data highlights how football was used by the populist government of Getúlio Vargas to propagate notions of a new Brazilian national identity. In conclusion, we find that eugenics, as a political ideology, significantly influenced state control over sporting activities and shaped racial and gender constructs during Brazilian history.