By Sarah de Sainte Croix, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Minister for Sport, Orlando Silva, announced his resignation yesterday in the wake of corruption allegations that have dominated national headlines for the last week. The Chief Secretary for Sport, Waldemar Manoel Silva de Souza, will take his place temporarily until a permanent successor is chosen.
In a statement to the public Silva said, “For the last twelve days I have been the victim of some low blows. In these twelve days, not one piece of concrete evidence against me has been presented. Yet this has generated a political crisis and I have commitment to the government.”
The Palacío de Planato confirmed the resignation, which followed an hour-long meeting with President Rousseff in which Silva said he had chosen to stand down in order to defend his name and avoid creating further problems for the government.
Orlando Silva belongs to the PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil) and was the party’s only minister in the current coalition in power.
As early as last week FIFA said it anticipated Silva to be removed from 2014 World Cup duties after being accused of embezzling money from a social program aimed at getting underprivileged children into sports.
Read more (in Portuguese).
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