five-year suspension for a Brazilian Olympic champion

The Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) on Tuesday increased the suspension of volleyball player Wallace, gold medalist at the 2016 Olympics, to five years for inciting violence against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

At the end of January, the 35-year-old player caused a scandal by posting a photo of himself in a shooting range on Instagram, with a poll asking his nearly 350,000 subscribers if they would be ready to shoot Lula, a month after the shooting. investiture of the latter.

Wallace, who openly supports far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, who was defeated by Lula in the October election, was suspended from competition for 90 days by the COB in February.

However, the player has obtained authorization from the Volleyball Court of Justice (STJDV) to play in the final of the Brazilian Superleague on April 30.

Lined up as a substitute with Sada Cruzeiro, he disputed a few points and his team was crowned.

But the COB Ethics Committee considered that this authorization was not legitimate, and that the player had not respected the sanction imposed in February. This is why this sanction was increased to five years on Tuesday.

“He played freely while suspended for an unethical act (…), the incitement to violence on social networks, suggesting that the president be shot“, can we read in the judgment rendered by this Ethics Committee.

The Brazilian government had also asked in January for criminal sanctions against the volleyball player, who apologized a few days after his publication on Instagram.

Wallace was one of the great architects of the Olympic title won at home by Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, in 2016, after winning silver in London-2012.