The Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) has suspended volleyball player Wallace de Souza, 35, from all sporting activities related to the entity. The preventive removal of the athlete occurs until the end of the process. Wallace has five business days from receiving the decision to appeal.
The document, released this Friday afternoon (3) by the COB Ethics Council, from the Compliance Officer of the institution, highlights the limit of freedom of expression and the incitement to violence as determining factors for the suspension of the player.
“The freedom of expression of athletes, managers and technical staff does not differ much from that attributable to any citizen and, therefore, is not to be confused with offenses, threats, violence or non-compliance with the institutions of the Democratic State of Law”, states the text that still points out that it is not possible to minimize the post on the athlete’s social network that suggested a shot at President Lula.
“Minimizing acts of this nature implies not only a ruthless omission in the defense of rationality, but also mistakenly signals towards the normalization of the absurd, allowing acts to be repeated and chaos to be established”, emphasizes the document of the Ethics Council.
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The suspension meets the request of the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) to punish the player. The requests were regarding the initiation of disciplinary proceedings, with a fine of R$ 100,000 and banishment from Olympic sport.
The Council also decided that the AGU is an interested party and has the right to follow the process until the end.
understand the case
Wallace de Souza took over the news after sharing on his Twitter account Instagram last Monday night (30) a question received by a follower in the form of a poll.
In the post, the follower’s question: “Would you shoot Lula in the face with this 12 (shotgun?)” was posted accompanied by another question asked by the player: “Would someone do that?”, with the possibility of answering “yes”. or not”.
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No Instagram of the athlete, the content has already been deleted. Sada Cruzeiro, the club for which the player is signed, removed the athlete indefinitely and stated that it repudiates any act that could mean incitement to violence.
“Attentive to the developments, the club informs that it has been taking measures in the face of the fact. The club demanded from the athlete Wallace a full retraction and an apology to all who felt offended by his posts”, says an excerpt from the club’s note.
After the controversy, Wallace recorded a video apologizing and saying that it was “an unfortunate post” and that “it was never intended to incite violence and hatred”.
Source: BdF Rio de Janeiro
Editing: Jacqueline Deister
