Jailed Brazil ex-president Lula now a World Cup commentator

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, AFP reports.

"This is not a joke," said Jose Trajano, who hosts the daily program at the Sao Paulo-based VTV network on which the ex-president (2003-2010) will opine.

Lula was jailed on April 7 and is serving a 12-year sentence for accepting a bribe. The 72-year-old leftist politician insists on his innocence and says the case is politically motivated.

The non-profit Lula Institute confirmed Trajano's announcement to AFP.

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.

Despite his incarceration, Lula remains popular and is far ahead in a poll of candidates in Brazil's October presidential election.

The first contribution by the prisoner-sports analyst-presidential candidate will air on Monday, one day after Brazil's first 2018 World Cup match against Switzerland.