Nowhere on Planet Football is more synonymous with sun, style and samba than Brazil, but the sporting vista is also pockmarked with a deadly fanaticism. Fear and loathing in São Paulo are causing players to demand transfers and fans to stay at home as the beautiful game withers to a cadaver.

In an old warehouse guarded by the huge bust of a golden hawk, a director of the biggest fans’ group in Brazil holds court. The Gavioes da Fiel are Corinthians’ hard core, the equivalent of Palmeiras’s Mancha Verde. Fernando Capez, a former state attorney who has led a crusade against the endemic football violence in Brazil, said that they are responsible for a litany of crimes, including an infamous incident ten years ago when the team coach was ambushed on a mountain road and attacked with crowbars. “Bandits,” Capez said.

Now the big story is the death threats received by Marquinhos, a Corinthians defender. Sinister echoes of the fate of Andrés Escobar, the Colombia defender who was shot dead after his own goal led to his country’s elimination from the 1994 World Cup, resonated after anonymous callers rang Marquinhos and told him that they would kill him, his wife and his seven-month-old daughter after he conceded a penalty last month. “How can I play like this?” he said.

Wendell Claro Martins, a director of Gavioes da Fiel (meaning Hawks of the People), denied any wrongdoing. “We are an inspection agency,” he said. “We inspect all aspects of the club because they are incapable of doing it themselves. If we saw any player doing anything that might hinder his performance while wearing a Corinthians shirt, then we would deal with it.” Emerson Leandro Figueiroa, a colleague who runs the Hawks’ samba school and helps to monitor the 70,000member database, admitted that they sometimes get the blame for the violence, but he suggested that it might be people from the Corinthians club who were responsible for Marquinhos’s calls. “Maybe he is is lying,” Figueiroa said.

Corinthians against Palmeiras remains one of the biggest matches in Brazil, a clássico between a club with an estimated 30 million followers and one born from the city’s Italian population who left Corinthians and became known as “the betrayers”. The consequences of failure are high, as Rivelino, the moustachioed icon of football’s 1970s apotheosis, recalled.

“In 1974, I played for Corinthians against Palmeiras and we lost,” he said. “Everyone knew I had supported Palmeiras as a boy and so I got the blame. I was sacked.”

The importance of the derby match has spawned a monster. São Paulo is a city of plush high rises and diseased favelas. This has filtered into the football world. Paulo VinÍcius Coelho, a football presenter known widely as PVC, said: “Today, we have a judgment on supporters who killed a Palmeiras fan in 2004. Two weeks ago, a Palmeiras fan got 14 years for killing a teenage Corinthians supporter. We’ve had 70 football murders in 20 years.”

The spiral of violence means people are choosing to stay at home. On Sunday, Corinthians played Palmeiras in the Campeonato Paulista, the São Paulo state championship. The rivalry is as harsh as ever, but a shade more than 28,000 turned up to the cavernous Morumbi bowl to watch Palmeiras win 3-0. It was another bad day for Émerson Leão, the Corinthians coach, who has recently suffered the twin indignities of being pepper-sprayed by police and labelled a “donkey” by the club’s fans. “We can force change and have the power to get rid of coaches,” Martins, the Hawks director, said.

Leão is a high-profile figure in Brazilian football. The former Brazil goalkeeper used to coach Palmeiras but crossed the city divide, to the wrath of many. He is paid about $2 million (about £1.04 million) a year, in a city where the minimum wage is £100 a month, and has alienated the media.

“He is full of himself and his aggression rubs off on the team, who are always having players sent off,” one journalist said at a preclássico training session, where Leão snubbed the press. After the defeat, Leão said: “The players are not strong psychologically.” The press officer shrugged and said: “Very sad, very sad.”

Caio Júnior, the young Palmeiras coach, spoke of building a dynasty. It was only one win, but it was the one that mattered. The victory lifted Palmeiras above Corinthians in the Paulista and the decline of this famous Brazilian club continues. The fans have become inured to promises. Tom Hicks, who, with his fellow-American, George Gillett Jr, has taken over Liverpool, had a spell there, but PVC said: “He promised a new stadium and never delivered.”

Then came Kia Joorabchian, whose company, Media Sports Investment (MSI), was involved with a failed bid for West Ham United last November. “Our plan is to build Corinthians into a team of galácticos,” he said on taking ownership of the club, and promptly bought Carlos Tévez, the Argentina forward, from Boca Juniors for £11.4 million, the most expensive transfer in Brazilian history.

MSI and Corinthians entered into a ten-year deal, but bad blood continues to be spilt by Joorabchian and Alberto Dualib, the octogenarian club president. While Joorabchian was in London after a bereavement, Dualib appointed Leão, who immediately stripped Tévez of the captaincy. Tévez is now with West Ham.

Politics, posturing and pitch battles are strangling the joy out of this derby match and it is sad that the country that gave us the beautiful game seems intent on death by 1,000 self-inflicted cuts. In the Morumbi, there was still a wall of sound and banks of colours. The Gavioes da Fiel and Mancha Verde displayed their flags with pride. It has not always been thus.

Capez managed to ban the Mancha Verde for a time after a match during which 100 people were hurt and one fan died. Capez also got judges to vote in favour of closing the Hawks. However, the Hawks are back, doing good work via their samba school, intimidating others with an air of menace and secret policing.

The football is suffering in Brazil, too. Gone are the days of Rivelino and Pelé, and the best players are exported. In the Morumbi, some players shone, notably Edmundo, the veteran striker, who scored twice, and Jorge Valdivia, the Palmeiras schemer. There were two bookings in the first two minutes, but the match did not erupt as it did in a mindboggling brawl in a previous encounter.

Meanwhile, O Casamento de Romeu e Julieta, an updated version of Romeo and Juliet, is doing brisk business in São Paulo’s cinemas. In it, Romeo, a Corinthians fan, lies to woo Juliet, only to lose his lust to her Palmerias bedspread. In the real world, the passion remains, but the romance is dead.

Rivals rating

Atmosphere Despite the poor crowd, there was still drums, flairs, flags and noise throughout – 7
Status MSI’s investment has not worked the miracle Corinthians wanted. Both teams are in mid-table – 6
History Corinthians were named after the English amateur team, while Palmeiras were founded by Italians in 1914. They are São Paulo’s most bitter rivals – 8
Ugliness In the past there have been riots, deaths, attacks on players and roadblocks by fans. With more people electing to stay at home, it was relatively trouble-free – 7
Fan rating The joint highest-ranked match in South America on Football Derbies fans’ website – 8.3
Total 36.3 (out of 50)
Previous Fenerbahçe v Galatasaray (39.5); Ajax v Feyenoord (37)
Match facts Corinthians 0 Palmeiras 3

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