Brazil Ex-President Lula To Comment World Cup from Prison Cell

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva may be in prison, but that hasn't stopped a Brazilian TV station from hiring the ex-president as a 2018 World Cup football commentator.

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"This is not a joke," said Jose Trajano, who hosts the daily program at the Sao Paulo-based VTV network (Workers' Channel in Spanish) on which the ex-president (2003-2010) will opine. Trajano made the announcement via Facebook and Lula's official Twitter account.

Lula "will write down his impressions and send them to us, and we will put them on the screen, in quotation marks, and read them on the air," said Trajano, a veteran Brazilian sports journalist, former director of ESPN Brazil - and known leftist sympathizer.

Lula was allowed a TV set in his cell immediately after he was jailed in the federal police headquarters in Curitiba, initially to follow Corinthians, his beloved football team.

Lula told AFP in March, before he was jailed, that he was optimistic about the chances of Brazil's national team to win a sixth World Cup championship in Russia. "Brazil is competitive, we have a good coach, a balanced team and players with good international experience," he said.

But Lula also said that Germany, France, England and Belgium were "well prepared," and that Argentina would "come out in force" because Lionel Messi must "settle his debt to the Argentine people" to emerge from the shadow of Argentine football legend Diego Maradona.

Lula was jailed on April 7 and is serving a 12-year sentence. The 72-year-old leftist politician insists on his innocence and says the case is politically motivated. Despite his incarceration, Lula remains popular and is far ahead in a poll of candidates in Brazil's October presidential election.