Tim Vickery column

By Tim Vickery South American football reporter

Read my answers to this week's questions

Whenever I make my way around Rio's Maracana stadium on match days, I'm always struck by the sight of a woman carrying a bundle of little transistor radios which she tries to sell them to the gathering crowd.

Flamengo have a huge and fanatical following

They cost little more than £3 each, and for big games, such as Sunday's Botafogo-Fluminense derby, she can get rid of 15 of them - with three more colleagues at other points around the ground also hawking away.

Fans do not buy the radios to keep in touch with events elsewhere - the idea is to follow the commentary and the analysis of the match they are about to see.

British football developed before the advent of current mass media, and tended to look upon it with suspicion, even banning transmissions for a while, and until relatively recently would not allow radio stations to announce in advance which main match they would be covering.

In South America, it is different. Radio was one of main sources for spreading popularity of the game. It is hugely important, a key channel of communication between the club and the fans - a role, of course, that in Britain the clubs like to carry out themselves, with their match programmes, phone lines and so on.

Announcing his retirement last week, Romario paid tribute to the fans of Flamengo, the Rio club he played for in the late 90s. "They're something from a different planet," he said.

A lot of that is down to radio.

When the game turned professional in the 1930s, and a player's origins mattered much less than his capacity to help win titles, Flamengo pulled a masterstroke.

They were an elite club, but they made a point of acquiring the popular touch, signing the three leading black players of the day, Leonidas, Domingos da Guia and Fausto.

Rio was Brazil's capital at the time, and radio transmitted Flamengo's games all across the giant country.

The club became a national sensation - they can play in the North East, thousands of miles from Rio, and still feel like the home side - and that can be traced back to the role of radio some seven decades ago.

If radio stations stop broadcasting matches, something will surely be lost

I am always reminded of the importance of radio as I take a place in the Maracana press box - just outside there is a hall of fame of football journalists, with dozens of pictures, mostly of radio men.

In my time in Rio I have noted the way they can change the inflection of their voices to add drama, I've tried to learn from their fluency in front of the microphone, and, of course, I've enjoyed the feature for which Brazilian radio commentators are most famous - their extraordinarily long goal celebrations.

At big games, when there are lots of radio commentators present, when the ball hits the back of the net I can be surrounded by them all yelling 'goooooooooooooooool' at the same time, like some exotic herd of seals. It is one of my favourite moments.

But it is under threat. A cold wind is blowing from the south.

Brazilian radio stations pay nothing to cover domestic games. Atletico Paranaense, from the southern city of Curitiba, are striving to bring this tradition to an end.

They want to charge radio stations a fee of almost £5,000 per game - it works out as less if they buy rights for an entire season.

Of course, they have a point - the radio stations are commercial operations which make money from selling adverts during the games.

But if this catches on - and there are rival interpretations on the legality of Atletico's action - then there are bound to be small stations who will be unable to pay. They will be obliged to stop broadcasting the matches, and something will surely be lost.

You can put your questions to Tim Vickery every week on the World Football Phone-in on BBC Radio 5 Live's Up All Night programme from 0230 to 0400 BST every Saturday. You can also download last week's World Football Phone-in Podcast.

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YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

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So Romario has retired!! I've seen a lot of top strikers over the past 30-40 years but none come close to that little genius. His first touch was even better than Maradona and there isn't a player in the world at the moment who could lace his boots when he was at his peak. He's got to be in the top 10 list of the all time greatest players and I'd even put him ahead of Cruyff, even though I realise they're different in many ways. It's the skill factor he had that made the hair stand on the back of my neck, pure genius and I'm glad I had the chance see him in action.
John Dowling

He's the most naturally talented centre forward I've ever seen, too - though you could argue that with all his ability he could have done even more. I'm convinced that the dogged statistical accumulation of his 1000 goal project was an attempt to make up for the important goals that he could have scored if he'd directed his career differently. I've often compared Romario to Muhammad Ali; like Ali, at the start he was pure speed, but as he aged he developed a different style based on positioning, technique and temperament. I can now argue that he's the missing link between Ali and Danny De Vito - apart from his stature, there's also the time, desperate to get into the 2002 World Cup squad, that he called a press conference to announce a full and complete apology - even though he couldn't think of anything he'd done wrong, just like De Vito in 'Tin Men.' The unconditional apology didn't work for either of them.

What's the state of play like for the goalkeeping position in Argentina. Julian Speroni has been our best player this year for Crystal Palace and he said his next step is to break into the Argentina squad. Do you think he has a good chance of being called up?
Brian Bateman

I cannot see how he can break in from outside the Premier League, especially as his profile back home is not particularly high. It wouldn't surprise me if national team coach Basile doesn't know much about him. The position is up for grabs; first choice Abbondanzieri is 35, and has never been world class. The great hope Ustari made a strange move to Getafe, the same club as Abbondanzieri, so he's been on the bench, confidence has suffered and he hasn't done very well when called upon. But Carrizo is playing well at River Plate, which obviously puts him in the spotlight. Speroni could save three penalties every week for Palace and it won't give him the same exposure as starring for one of the giant clubs back in Argentina.