Carlos Kaiser: The Fake Footballer

We all may have heard of someone scamming people by donning the guise of any occupation, such as doctor, teacher, construction worker, and ultimately being completely humiliated when his/her farce is brought to the fore. However, these occupations may have loopholes in terms of their employment, which these fraudsters play to their advantage (you will never see a normal patient asking for a doctor’s degree). However, there are some areas where it barely sounds believable that someone has faked his way through and gone ahead, sports being one of them. You see, sports requires a certain type of discipline, and there are not many ways that you can fool a sports coach into believing that you are a professional. Which brings us to the case of Carlos Kaiser, a “footballer” who “enjoyed a career” for a decade, including at no less than clubs such as Botafogo, Flamengo and Fluminense, completely flummoxing people as to how he reached at this level in the first place.

Carlos Raposo was born in Brazil in 1963, and earned the nickname ‘Kaiser’ owing to him resembling Franz Beckenbauer during his youth (oh, the irony!). Playing in the role of a striker, he started his youth career in 1972 at Botafogo, ultimately earning a move to Flamengo a year later, where he stayed for almost four years, until he caught the attention of Mexican club Puebla in 1979, who signed him soon after. However, he was let go in 1981, having played a grand total of zero matches for them. For all his lack of talent, the man knew how to party, and through his connections at various clubs (nightclubs, to be clear), he would show his footballing friends a good time, who would return the favour by guaranteeing him deals at various clubs, even if for a short-term. Taking advantage of the lack of medical advancements in those days, he would sign for a club, only to feign injury later, which would lead club officials to keep him on the bench. This was not the only means by which he kept his fraud identity hidden. Oh no, he went further steps ahead and subtly bribed journalists by gifting them players’ jerseys so that they wrote nice things about him.

Among his other ploys were to use a fake mobile phone where he would pretend to display that he was being courted by other clubs, a technique that he used successfully at quite a few clubs. At another time, he joined a Brazilian club ‘Bangu’, which was owned by a mafia boss, where his connections and smooth talk kept him at the club for quite some time, again with zero appearances. Ultimately, his charming mannerisms guised his zero talent, keeping his “career” alive. The man now has a book and a movie based on his life, and footballer or not, this guy was definitely a player!!