lit a candle 3h agoMy uncle died of the same thing, metastatic melanoma, three years ago, so seeing that word in his obituary this morning stopped me cold. I don't know his reporting firsthand but the way people describe him covering that World Cup scoop in 2010 reminds me of how my uncle used to chase a story. 61 is nothing.
Their story
Sílvio Barsetti was a Brazilian sports journalist and author whose career in Rio de Janeiro newsrooms spanned almost four decades. He spent about twenty years at O Estado de S. Paulo, where he broke one of the paper's best known scoops, wrote two books on Brazilian politics, and from 2023…
Sílvio Barsetti was a Brazilian sports journalist and author whose career in Rio de Janeiro newsrooms spanned almost four decades. He spent about twenty years at O Estado de S. Paulo, where he broke one of the paper's best known scoops, wrote two books on Brazilian politics, and from 2023 worked in the communications department of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). He died in Rio de Janeiro in October 2026, aged 61, after treatment for metastatic melanoma.
Barsetti was born on 21 May 1965. He graduated in journalism from the Faculdade Hélio Alonso in Rio in 1988 and began his career that year, working over time in sport, culture and politics. He reported for the Jornal dos Sports, the Jornal do Brasil and O Dia before joining the Rio bureau of O Estado de S. Paulo in 1995, where he coordinated sports coverage and stayed until 2015. He later wrote a column for the Terra portal.
As the Estadão reporter assigned to the CBF, he covered the Brazilian national team and the politics behind the national game. For the paper he covered the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio and the 2012 London Olympics. In 2010 he reported that São Paulo's Morumbi stadium would be left out of the 2014 World Cup and that a new stadium would be built in Itaquera. The CBF and FIFA initially denied the story, but it was confirmed months later, and the Itaquera arena went on to host the opening match. In 2016 he gave evidence to the Brazilian Senate's inquiry into corruption in football.
He was also an author. A Farra dos Guardanapos: O Último Baile da Era Cabral reconstructed the rise and fall of former Rio governor Sérgio Cabral, and O Outro Lado do Poder told the story of Brazilian politics through the eyes of sex workers. He also worked on the research for José Castello's biography of Vinicius de Moraes. He was a declared supporter of América of Rio.
At the CBF, where he joined the press and communications team in early 2023 and became communications coordinator, he edited the confederation's website and travelled with national teams. He had been diagnosed with melanoma the previous year and underwent brain surgery and radiotherapy. He was admitted to Hospital Vitória in Barra da Tijuca on 11 October 2026 and died there, with the CBF giving the date as 13 October. CBF communications director Fabio Seixas called him "an outstanding journalist", and a minute of silence was held before Brazil's women's friendly against Argentina that evening.
Biography adapted from g1, O Estado de S. Paulo, Metrópoles, CBF (via OneFootball) obituary reports.
Photos
1Sílvio Barsetti, from the CBF tribute
by People Forever
So sorry. It is a cruel disease, takes people fast once it spreads.