By Mercedes Sayagues
MAPUTO, May 9 2000 (IPS)

The stadium is packed. The crowd cheers wildly. This is a key match for Mozambique’s first league soccer cup.

The players emerge from the tunnels. But they are not wearing their team colors. Instead, they wear white T-shirts and white caps emblazoned with a logo: a soccer ball bouncing on top of the AIDS red ribbon.

Both teams run across the field, unfurling a long red banner to form the AIDS symbol.

Meanwhile, smiling young men and women in similar outfits hand out condoms and leaflets about HIV/AIDS to the public. They will do the same during the half time, when security is relaxed and lots of people sneak in.

This is Joga Seguro (Play Safe), a creative HIV/AIDS prevention campaign launched in Mozambique in October last year.

Soccer is by far Mozambique’s most popular sport. Banking on its popularity, Joga Seguro informs people about the disease and promotes safe sex as the first barrier for HIV prevention.

Promoting condoms in radio spots, television advertisements and billboards are eight famous Mozambican soccer stars.

Travellers arriving at Maputo airport are greeted by a Joga Seguro billboard close to the luggage carousel.

Its condom dispensary empties quickly and needs frequent refills.

Household names such as Victor dos Santos, voted sports star of 1999, Rui Evora and Joao Chissano, players with Costa do Sol; Antonio Muchanga and Salvador Macamo, of Maxaquene, and Jose Elvino, Daniel Nhampossa and Arnaldo Salvado, of Ferroviario, have lent their considerable prestige to the campaign.

The campaign also seeks to protect players from HIV infection.

“Because players have fans and money, train away from their families and travel often, their sexual life can be risky,” says coordinator Rui Tadeu.

Through national and provincial soccer leagues, Joga Seguro conducts HIV/AIDS sessions with players and their trainers, masseurs, managers, and arbiters.

“Trainers are important because they know the players’ sexual life intimately,” adds Tadeu. While top management needs to be seen as supporting the campaign.

Joga Seguro has a regular column in the sports pages of main newspapers and magazines, about HIV/AIDS in the world of sports.

A recent edition told the story of Magic Johnson, the basketball star who shocked the world when he disclosed his seropositive status. Radio broadcasts of soccer matches include safe sex messages.

Catastrophic floods in March hampered activities in the central region but work continues in the northern provinces of Nampula and Cabo Delgado.

Joga Seguro’s one-year budget is U

Excerpt: