Brazilian goalkeeper Bruno Fernandes de Souza has signed a new deal at the age of 38.
The former star has become known worldwide after ordering the torture and murder of his ex-girlfriend Eliza Samudio in 2010.
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In January this year the star gloveman was granted parole after confessing to his role in the murder of the 25-year-old model. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2013.
Orion Futebol Clube in Sao Paulo pounced at the opportunity to sign the former star keeper who previously played for Atletico Mineiro, Corinthians and Flamengo.
The signing was announced on social media on Wednesday after they posted a picture of the goalkeeper with a raised clenched fist.
The club, which will compete in the Super Copa Pioneer this year, wrote: “Backup for the position, welcome!”
After being granted habeas corpus in 2017, Bruno has since signed deals to play for seven teams.
His prison sentence was semi-open from July 2019, the semi-open regime allows prisoners to work outside the prison during the day before they return each night.
Officials at Varginha Prison then allowed Bruno to sleep at his home, where he was ordered to stay between the hours of 8pm and 6am every night.
The pair met in 2009 when Samudio fell pregnant. Bruno is said to have demanded she have an abortion but she went ahead and gave birth in 2010.
She disappeared in 2010 shortly after she had approached police claiming she had been held captive by Bruno and his associates, who forced her to take an illegal abortion drug.
Bruno allegedly put a gun to her head and told her: ‘You don’t know who I am or what I’m capable of – I’m from the favela.’
After fighting for financial support from the goalkeeper, he conspired with friends to have her kidnapped and held in a shed in Belo Horizonte, where she was tortured and strangled to death.
On Bruno’s orders, the assailants then disposed of Samudio’s body by feeding her to his dogs.
“This is a barbaric crime,” former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said in 2010, according to The Guardian, following Bruno’s arrest. “The whole of Brazil is disgusted by such a barbaric and perverse crime.”
Bruno first signed a two-year deal with Boa Esporte in 2017 in a move that struck a nerve with Brazilian fans and women’s rights groups, who viewed the leniency offered a soccer star as a disturbing sign of the country’s misogynistic culture.
“We protest both against this contract and against the willingness of the team and its sponsors to have their images linked to feminicide,” one Brazilian group, the Popular Feminist Front of Varghina, wrote in a statement on Facebook.
“A woman-killer must not be allowed a life acclaimed by the media. Bruno is no longer just a goalkeeper; his notoriety reflects the ease with which a woman’s life is forgotten in the interests of a sporting career.”
Three sponsors reportedly pulled their support of Boa Esporte after the announcement was made.
Ironically, Brazilian team Cruzeiro had its players wear specially designed shirts for last Wednesday’s Brazilian Cup game in an effort to raise awareness of the injustices facing women on International Women’s Day. Some read “A rape every 11 minutes” and others “Salaries 30% lower.”
– with the NY Post.