Bigger slice \ \

Eight associations claim to be responsible for 213 of the 227 athletes who went to Beijing and form a group that calls itself the C13 of Olympic sport.

EDUARDO OHATA - Folha de SP\ FROM LOCAL REPORT \ The Minister of Sports, Orlando Silva Jr., considers the main demand of the Council of Clubs Training Olympic Athletes, which will be officially launched today, to be legitimate: to receive a percentage of the funds from the Piva Law, currently passed on exclusively to the Brazilian Olympic Committee and the Brazilian Paralympic Committee. \ The government representative states that it is in the COB's interest to open this discussion. But the committee led by Carlos Arthur Nuzman, in turn, already claims that the money received today is not enough. "If you look at the beginnings of the Piva Law [the original bill], it wasn't specified that lottery money had to go to the COB or the CPB," responded Silva Jr., when questioned by Folha about the topic. The minister even proposes to serve as a "bridge" between the clubs and the Olympic committee. ""I was with Nuzman and introduced the topic. I believe that the COB thinks it is important to address this issue." \ The Piva Law was already a source of disagreement between the ministry and the COB last year, when the ministry produced an "Olympic goals program" as a form of compensation for the funds allocated to the committee. Such an initiative went against the entity's policy, whose president avoided making projections about results at all costs. \ Ironically, at the end of last year, under pressure from national sports confederations that questioned the distribution of funds from the Piva Law, which allocates 2% of gross revenue from federal lotteries to the COB and CPB, Nuzman announced the launch of a meritocracy program for the confederations. It is based on this that the percentages of each of the confederations will be defined. After the Beijing 2008 Games, when Brazil dropped seven places compared to its position in Athens 2004, Silva Jr. stated that he intended to invoke a decree by President Lula made at the time of the Piva Law to create conditions to monitor, through reports, the way in which the funds are used. \ Since then, Silva Jr. claims to be studying the Piva Law, sanctioned in July 2001 by then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Headed by Minas Tennis Club and Pinheiros, the club council also includes Flamengo, Vasco, Fluminense, Grêmio Náutico União, Sogipa and Corinthians. Self-defined by its founders as a "kind of Club of 13 of Olympic sport", the entity says it is open to the participation of more associations. \ The founding members claim to be responsible for 213 of the 227 athletes who made up the Brazilian delegation at the Beijing Olympic Games. In its defense, the COB argues that the Piva Law is fundamental for the development of Brazilian Olympic sport, but that it is not enough. And he says that the funds correspond to a third of his needs, according to a diagnosis presented by the entity in 2000. \ Despite announcing that he will not be present at the council's presentation ceremony - he has a scheduled appointment with President Lula for today -, the minister intends to meet with the entity's representatives ""quickly". \ ""I want to hear the clubs' projects, their ideas. So far there has been no official contact between us. I respect your work, as well as that of Minas and Pinheiros, who competently used the instrument already at their disposal, which is the law of tax incentives for sports," he says. \ Finally, he tries to ease the pressure on the ministry. "You can't expect everything to come from the federal government. Initiatives such as Bolsa-Atleta and the incentive law must be replicated, on a smaller scale, by states and municipalities and benefit less prominent federations and athletes." \

Collaborated ADALBERTO LEISTER FILHO, from Local Reporting