The trouble with being Marta

Like many skilful Brazilians, five-time world soccer player of the year Marta has travelled to pursue her career.

The list of accomplishments for the 29-year-old—who led Brazil into its first match of the Fifa Women’s World Cup on Tuesday—include the sport’s top player a record five times between 2006 and 2010, and the highest scorer in the 2007 tournament, when Brazil finished second.

On Tuesday, in Brazil’s 2-0 win over South Korea, Marta also became the record goalscorer at world cups: Her second-half penalty took her tally to 15, one more than Germany’s Birgit Prinz.

Marta has also been league champion six times in Sweden, where she plays for Rosengård, and twice in the US. She’s arguably one of the greatest ever in the sport. What she isn’t, her agent says, is highly paid.

“It’s not close,” says her manager, Fabiano Farah, who used to represent Brazil men’s team star Ronaldo. Brazilian players on eastern Europe clubs make much more than Marta without making appearances for the Selecao, as the national team is known. “It’s a big gap from Marta to average players, who are not known. It’s incredible the lack of attention and the need for survival for these ladies.”

Farah wouldn’t disclose her income. According to the Swedish tax authority, Marta earned 1.58 million kronor (around ₹ 1.2 crore now) in Sweden in 2013 when she was playing for Tyresoe. That’s about a week’s salary for Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo or Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, the last two men to win Fifa’s player of the year. It’s unclear whether Marta’s disclosed income included her sponsorship deals.

Brazil is in a group that includes Spain and Costa Rica, apart from Korea, and is fourth favourite to win the tournament, according to UK bookmaker William Hill, with the US, Germany, and France ahead of them.

“It’s a war,” Marta, whose given name is Marta Vieira da Silva, said in an interview. “It’s very difficult when you enter a war: you live or you die.”

Her national coach, Oswaldo Fumeiro Alvarez, known as Vadao, says the forward is as important to his team as Barcelona’s Neymar is to the men’s squad.

Neymar moved to Barcelona in May 2013 for what the Spanish team said was €57 million (around ₹ 410 crore). The 23-year-old helped Barcelona win the Champions League and the Spanish cup and the league this season, after helping drive host Brazil to the semi-finals of last year’s world cup before missing that match—a 7-1 drubbing by eventual champion Germany—with an injury.

And while Neymar is now one of football’s biggest success stories, Marta has hopped from one team to another around the world, trying to find a steady gig. She has played for eight professional teams in her career, seven of which went defunct. It is a peculiar situation: While her country cares little about women’s football, Marta herself is highly popular in Brazil for her playing skills. During the 2007 World Cup, Pele said Marta was “Pele with a skirt”. In 2011, after a teenage Neymar played with her in a charity match, he called her “the best in the world”.

Marta’s latest club Rosengård hasn’t lost since her arrival last year, coach Markus Tilly says, and her presence attracts more fans to the club. Marta, who communicates with Tilly in Swedish, has helped bring in local sponsors. Marta may be the world’s best female footballer, but she’s not even the highest paid in the Swedish women’s league, Tilly says.

Most of Marta’s income comes from endorsement agreements with beverage company Coca-Cola and sports brand Puma, Farah says. The United Nations made her a goodwill ambassador, using her fame and appeal to bring attention to development and women’s issues.

“Coke did their focus groups to really measure Marta’s appeal on a global scale and for the Brazilian market,” Farah says. “Her rejection is almost zero because men like Marta, to watch Marta play. Women have Marta’s story as something aspirational because if she as a women can do that. Why not those other women do other activities dominated by men.”

She was born and raised in a poor neighbourhood of a town in the Brazilian state of Alagoas, about 2,000km north of Rio de Janeiro. She started playing with local boys and moved away at 14 to pursue her career, which took her to Sweden three years later. She occasionally returns, and likes seeing more young girls kicking soccer balls and enjoying the game that she’s pursued.

“I hope my individual victories and particularly the achievements with the team have helped women have the courage to do whatever they want to do in life,” she said. “Brazil has changed a lot and there are many girls who are professional athletes today.” Bloomberg