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Touchline • Issue 18 • 9
And to put a little sugar into everyone’s caiparinhas, the
government proudly told the people that not only would
they be getting the finals, they would be getting improved
infrastructure into the deal. Want more? Well, the 12 stadiums
would be funded by private investment, so the tax-payer’s
money could be directed to all roads, public transport and
tourism: things that would improve lives in the long term.
Enthusiasm was a cheap commodity at the time: Brazil was
booming with growth of 5%. Social welfare had become part
of the national discourse, and literacy was on the rise.
In the lead up to major sporting events, plenty of digital ink
is spent on furrow-browed portents of disaster. The Sochi
Winter Olympics was the most recent, where there was much
white-knuckled fear that Russia would be left looking foolish
in front of the world. Given Athens 2000 Olympics played a
significant role in the bankrupting of the country, Brazil 2014
has a lot of people worried, but the difference between this
case and many previous is that this has become the focus of
a social movement.
The three categories of concern can be broken into
intersecting areas: construction, commercialisation and
polarisation.
Construction
Traditionally, eight cities host World Cup tournaments. Brazil
decided to go with 12. The organisers claim that they wish to
showcase the diversity of Brazil, which is the size of Western
Europe and has a population of 200 million. By concentrating
the matches in the big cities, such as Sao Paulo and Rio
de Janeiro, other parts of the country would be neglected.
So four more cities were added to the roster. Even capital
Brasilia, who doesn’t boast a serious club team, got a new
stadium. Earnestly, if impractically, all the new stadiums
were designed to be green, with solar energy and grey water
systems that had to be imported.
Costs got jacked up, and it soon became apparent that the
government, despite convictions that they would not be
spending money on the stadiums, were paying for them.
Price was one thing: practicality another. Six of the new
stadiums missed an early 2014 deadline, prompting
FIFA President Sepp Blatter to lash out at the Brazilian
government. He accused them of not knowing what was
involved in preparing for the biggest sporting event in the
world. “Brazil has just found out what it means and has
started work much too late. No country has been so far
behind in preparations since I have been at FIFA, even though
it is the only host nation which has had so much time – seven
years – in which to prepare.”
In January things were looking so bad that Jerome Valcke,
secretary general of the sport’s governing body, gave a move-
it-or-lose-it ultimatum. “You cannot organise games if you
do not have a stadium -- that’s obvious. If you don’t have a
stadium then you cannot have four games taking place here.
So that’s why again there is this emergency situation.”
© ISAAC RIBEIRO 2013
CONSTRUCTION
The first
demonstrations
begain in Natal, Rio
Grande do Norte,
during August-
September 2012.