Truly, life is one long learning experience, with every day throwing up spanking new, revelationary "well, I never knew that" moments. For example, did you know that it is illegal to post beef hearts and chicken necks from Dublin to Rio de Janeiro, even if you wrap them in tin-foil and put them in a well-sealed jiffy bag? It's these kind of pernickety rules, regulations and red tape that leave An Post's customers not a little exasperated (and result in ugly scenes in local post offices, with some customers departing the scene in the back of a squad car) and now leave me with a fine for a public disorder offence and an unposted jiffy bag full of animal bits that I have no great use for. Meanwhile, in a Rio de Janeiro zoo there's a peckish vulture who would kill for a beef heart or a chicken neck. It's senseless. The goods of this world are unevenly distributed, as they say, like the way some clubs have three half-decent left-backs and Manchester United have divil a one. Anyway. You will be unaware of this vulture's plight if you have a life and are not a regular visitor to South American football websites. Brazilian club Flamengo are nicknamed "The Vultures" and, so, two years ago the club's wizard PR department decided that it'd be a cute move to sponsor the vulture in Rio de Janeiro's zoo and pay for all his grub. That, 1999, was also the year Flamengo was listed as the 11th richest club in the world, in a survey by accountants Deloitte and Touche. It is estimated that the club has 25 million supporters (mercifully, not all turn up for home games), so if you take it that even half of them buy one replica shirt every season you have yourself a healthy bank balance. But? But now they're up to their eyes in debts (with corruption allegations filling the air) and are more pre-occupied with paying players' wages than paying for the vulture's five-course meal of beef hearts, chicken necks, rats, live guinea pigs and a cappuccino. In fact the club has failed to pay up the 500 Reais ($260) a month it had pledged since the start of the year. The rumbles from the vulture's tummy can be heard in Mullingar.
Why so much concern about happenings at a South American football club (and neighbouring zoo)? Lots of reasons. The main one being there's never a dull moment with Flamengo, on or off the pitch, and so many reasons to love them.
The average headline from a match involving Flamengo? "Mayhem - Six sent off, two shot in Brazilian game". On that occasion, four of them were Flamengo players, including Beto who wasn't best pleased when Vasco da Gama's Pedrinho began playing keepie-uppie when his team led 5-1. Beto was red-carded, Pedrinho is still being stitched together. And? Their supporters are a smidgen passionate, bless 'em. When Vasco da Gama, who they, um, dislike, lost to Real Madrid in the World Club Cup final a couple of years ago, thousands of Flamengo's die-hards poured on to the streets of Rio in celebration. The party lasted all night. All week, in fact. And the club bought large advertising spaces in leading newspapers to taunt Vasco over their defeat. Best of all - in 1902, Fluminense, Rio's rich man's club, was established by the son of a well-to-do British immigrant. Early club members were said to travel to games in dinner jackets. In 1911, a bunch of Fluminense lads had enough of this lark and walked out on the club and formed their own, Flamengo. The Fluminense aristocrats gave them the nickname urubu, which means vulture. Why vulture? Because the vultures that hover over the shanty-towns of Rio are black and so, the Fluminense toffs observed, were most of Flamengo's supporters. Meanwhile, Fluminense's traditional emblem is po-de-arroz - rice powder. Eh? Well, their supporters used to throw rice powder or talc at visiting black players to "lighten" their skin. (Read more in Chris Taylor's sublime 1998 book, The Beautiful Game - A Journey Through Latin American Football). See? Any wonder we have a soft spot for Flamengo. And any wonder we worry about that hungry urubu in Rio de Janeiro's zoo? And any wonder we were a mite aggravated by the An Post official's wanton disregard for the urubu's empty tummy?
"I appreciate that you didn't pack rats and live guinea pigs in to the package but, for the 14th time, you are not allowed post beef hearts and chicken necks to Rio de Janeiro," he blustered. A Bohs supporter if ever I saw one.
The vulture's plight, of course, is being ignored by the European media, too pre-occupied are they by events in Munich on Wednesday night. As I write, they're still trying to discover the identity of the man pretending to be a footballer in that Manchester United pre-Bayern Munich photo. Lads? Hello? His name? Mikael Silvestre.
