By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Published: October 26 2007 19:28 Last updated: October 26 2007 19:28
Fifa’s 200-seat auditorium in Zurich will be packed to the aisles on Tuesday when football’s world governing body is expected to confirm Brazil as host for the 2014 World Cup.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be there with at least four state governors, two or more ministers and a plane-load of other politicians, not to mention football officials, other guests and as many members of the media as can squeeze themselves in.
The size of the delegation reflects the sense of joy felt around the world’s greatest footballing nation that the World Cup is finally coming back, 64 years after the 1950 competition, when an estimated 200,000 people packed into Rio’s 174,000-capacity Maracanã stadium to watch Brazil go 1-0 up then 2-1 down to Uruguay in the final. The 2014 competition, it is hoped, will bury that trauma once and for all.
However, the size of the delegation also hints at what else may lie ahead: farra, as they say in Portuguese, meaning a binge, spree or bender.
Eighteen cities the length and breadth of Brazil’s enormous territory are vying to be among the 8 to 12 match venues. None of them has a stadium that is up to the job, so a series of massive construction projects are in the offing, with all the possibilities for corruption that works of such a size can famously offer.
Something of what may be in store can be glimpsed from the Pan-American Games held in Rio de Janeiro in July. Many had predicted an organisational disaster, yet the games went off surprisingly well, with the works finished (just) on time and no major upsets, and thanks to heavy policing and the presence of troops on the streets, crime was successfully contained.
Indeed, the success of the games – and especially the fact that Maracanã, now a 95,000 all-seater stadium, looked so splendid – has boosted Rio’s chances of hosting other international sporting events, including the 2016 Olympics.
Yet the success was qualified. The TCU, Brazil’s public accounts office, found that contracts for construction and refurbishment had run over budget by as much as 10 times. In August, the TCU halted all payments to contractors on suspicion of widespread fraud.
Hefty policing can all but eliminate crime. A friend recounts meeting a gaggle of elderly ladies promenading beside Copacabana beach one evening, drenched in jewellery and furs. “Where are you off to, senhoras?” he asked. “Nowhere,” they replied. “Just taking the chance to show off the jewels.”
But repeating that trusting trick in up to a dozen cities will be harder to carry off.
One of the failings of the Pan-American games was that it did not deliver the lasting improvements promised by the organisers, such as new public transport and cleaning up pollution in Rio’s central lagoon. Many now wonder what legacy a much bigger undertaking will leave for the nation.
“In theory, Brazil can perfectly well host the Cup,” says Juka Kfouri, a sports journalist. “What we can’t do is repeat what they did in Germany. We have to have a World Cup for Brazil, within our own realities.
“If we use it as a chance to improve the quality of infrastructure in the host cities, then we really will leave a legacy for the nation. But that was expected of the Pan and it didn’t happen.”
Mr Kfouri worries that those who run Brazilian football will make stadium-building for the competition as grandiose as possible. Ricardo Teixeira, the veteran president of the Brazilian Confederation of Football, has already said the competition will not use Brazil’s two biggest stadiums – Maracanã in Rio and Morumbi in São Paulo – unless they are knocked down and rebuilt.
Alarm bells have rung in the press over the constitution of the organising committee, presided over by Mr Teixeira.
Commentators have fretted that the committee’s statutes explicitly leave it free from oversight or interference by the government – even though public money will pay for much of the work to be carried out.
Doubts have also been voiced about the ability of Brazil’s creaking transport infrastructure to deal with a huge influx of visitors criss-crossing the country. The aftermath of an aviation crisis precipitated by two major accidents over the past 14 months has left airports prone to overcrowding and delays.
Nevertheless, the World Cup is a long way off. By 2014 Brazil may have sorted out some of its most pressing problems. And as Mr Kfouri says: “If South Africa [host for the 2010 World Cup] can do it, so can Brazil.”
.President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be there with at least four state governors, two or more ministers and a plane-load of other politicians, not to mention football officials, other guests and as many members of the media as can squeeze themselves in.
The size of the delegation reflects the sense of joy felt around the world’s greatest footballing nation that the World Cup is finally coming back, 64 years after the 1950 competition, when an estimated 200,000 people packed into Rio’s 174,000-capacity Maracanã stadium to watch Brazil go 1-0 up then 2-1 down to Uruguay in the final. The 2014 competition, it is hoped, will bury that trauma once and for all.
However, the size of the delegation also hints at what else may lie ahead: farra, as they say in Portuguese, meaning a binge, spree or bender.
Eighteen cities the length and breadth of Brazil’s enormous territory are vying to be among the 8 to 12 match venues. None of them has a stadium that is up to the job, so a series of massive construction projects are in the offing, with all the possibilities for corruption that works of such a size can famously offer.
Something of what may be in store can be glimpsed from the Pan-American Games held in Rio de Janeiro in July. Many had predicted an organisational disaster, yet the games went off surprisingly well, with the works finished (just) on time and no major upsets, and thanks to heavy policing and the presence of troops on the streets, crime was successfully contained.
Indeed, the success of the games – and especially the fact that Maracanã, now a 95,000 all-seater stadium, looked so splendid – has boosted Rio’s chances of hosting other international sporting events, including the 2016 Olympics.
Yet the success was qualified. The TCU, Brazil’s public accounts office, found that contracts for construction and refurbishment had run over budget by as much as 10 times. In August, the TCU halted all payments to contractors on suspicion of widespread fraud.
Hefty policing can all but eliminate crime. A friend recounts meeting a gaggle of elderly ladies promenading beside Copacabana beach one evening, drenched in jewellery and furs. “Where are you off to, senhoras?” he asked. “Nowhere,” they replied. “Just taking the chance to show off the jewels.”
But repeating that trusting trick in up to a dozen cities will be harder to carry off.
One of the failings of the Pan-American games was that it did not deliver the lasting improvements promised by the organisers, such as new public transport and cleaning up pollution in Rio’s central lagoon. Many now wonder what legacy a much bigger undertaking will leave for the nation.
“In theory, Brazil can perfectly well host the Cup,” says Juka Kfouri, a sports journalist. “What we can’t do is repeat what they did in Germany. We have to have a World Cup for Brazil, within our own realities.
“If we use it as a chance to improve the quality of infrastructure in the host cities, then we really will leave a legacy for the nation. But that was expected of the Pan and it didn’t happen.”
Mr Kfouri worries that those who run Brazilian football will make stadium-building for the competition as grandiose as possible. Ricardo Teixeira, the veteran president of the Brazilian Confederation of Football, has already said the competition will not use Brazil’s two biggest stadiums – Maracanã in Rio and Morumbi in São Paulo – unless they are knocked down and rebuilt.
Alarm bells have rung in the press over the constitution of the organising committee, presided over by Mr Teixeira.
Commentators have fretted that the committee’s statutes explicitly leave it free from oversight or interference by the government – even though public money will pay for much of the work to be carried out.
Doubts have also been voiced about the ability of Brazil’s creaking transport infrastructure to deal with a huge influx of visitors criss-crossing the country. The aftermath of an aviation crisis precipitated by two major accidents over the past 14 months has left airports prone to overcrowding and delays.
Nevertheless, the World Cup is a long way off. By 2014 Brazil may have sorted out some of its most pressing problems. And as Mr Kfouri says: “If South Africa [host for the 2010 World Cup] can do it, so can Brazil.”
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