PRESIDENTE PRUDENTE, Brazil (AP) – The talented midfielder at small Brazilian club Presidente Prudente rushes to finish his rounds delivering food for a local restaurant so he can make it to practise in time. His teammate has to leave training quickly so he can get to his parent’s diner in time to prepare pizzas.

Don’t be fooled by Pele’s fortunes, Neymar’s massive contract or Brazil’s powerful national team. Professional soccer in the World Cup host nation is struggling, with lower-division teams unable to play enough games, players forced to take multiple jobs and even top-tier teams competing in mostly empty stadiums.

The best players leave quickly for offers to play in other nations. More than 70 per cent of Brazil’s nearly 700 professional teams play only about three months a year, meaning nearly 12,000 players are out of a job for most of the season. Meanwhile, the best teams are forced to play up to 85 games a year, more than any other league in the world.

Presidente Prudente’s season started in April and will end in mid-June. The team did not advance past the group stage of the fourth division in Sao Paulo and will play about 10 matches the entire year. They played only eight matches last season. It’s hard to find opponents and difficult to pay for travel.

“The calendar is the biggest problem,” Presidente Prudente president Mateus Grosso told The Associated Press at the club’s headquarters. “Teams have to hire players for at least three months, but many times they may not get play for that long the entire year.”

The debts of Brazilian clubs increased by nearly 75 per cent in the last five years, and they owe more than $1 billion to the government alone, according to numbers from a players’ movement created last year. Of the nearly 20,000 professional players in Brazil, about 16,000 earn less than US$650 a month.

Clubs are run by unqualified directors and federations are influenced by politics, leading to bad decisions and poor planning affecting everyone involved in the sport.

There’s fan violence, stadiums are empty and some of the country’s most traditional tournaments have lost their flair. Brazil’s most popular club, Flamengo, played in front of 375 fans in a Rio de Janeiro state championship match earlier this year.

“Professional football in Brazil is a world where only 30 per cent of the teams are at a high level and can enjoy the glamour of the sport. The reality is a lot different than what its seen on television,” said Arthur Vinicius Marcelo, the football co-ordinator at Presidente Prudente and also the club’s physical trainer.

“Not everybody knows what most of the players have to go through. It’s a daily struggle for most of them.”

Many players need second jobs.

“I wouldn’t be able to provide for my family only by playing football,” said 24-year-old Presidente Prudente midfielder Rogerio Salvato Jr. “I make more money by delivering takeout than I do by playing football.”

President Prudente, based in a city by the same name about 560 kilometres (350 miles) from Sao Paulo, receives $6,200 annually from the Sao Paulo state federation for playing in the fourth division.

The team’s monthly payroll is about $9,000 and the funds to keep the club running come from sponsorships from a local supermarket and a local tool store. Grosso said there are also investments made from his own family, which founded the club in 1989.

“We contribute with whatever we can,” he said. “The lack of funds is a big problem because we can’t dream big if we can’t have a decent infrastructure for the players.”

Presidente Prudente play in front of fewer than 400 fans in most of their matches at the city’s 45,000-capacity stadium. Players go to practise on a Volkswagen ‘Kombi’ van which has one of its doors broken.

But it’s not just the small teams that are struggling. Rio de Janeiro powerhouses Botafogo and Flamengo both had problems paying salaries this year. Palmeiras, the team with the most national titles, recently decided to use a salary cap and is only hiring players on production-based contracts, an unprecedented move for top Brazilian teams.

Instead of playing too little, top teams play too much. On average, the nation’s top clubs play 40 per cent more than Premier League teams.

The packed calendar forces teams to use second-stringers in many matches. It’s one of the reasons the once glamorous regional tournaments have lost their importance.

At the semi-finals of the Rio de Janeiro state championship earlier this year at the Maracana, the stadium which will host nearly 80,000 people in the World Cup final, fewer than 4,000 people were on hand to see Flamengo beat Cabofriense. In a Brazilian Cup match between Nautico and America, fewer than 400 fans showed up.

The average attendance in Brazil is about 12,900, less than in leagues in Australia and the United States.