The draw for the 2014 FIFA World Cup takes place in Bahia in just over a week’s time. The tournament is the pinnacle of international football, but what kind of legacy will it leave for host nation Brazil?
There was widespread jubilation in October 2007, when Brazil was confirmed as host of the 20th football World Cup.
Rightly regarded as one of the spiritual homes of football, South America’s largest nation famously hosted the World Cup in 1950.
To say the tournament didn’t end well for the Brazilians is an understatement, as they succumbed 2-1 in the final to southern neighbours Uruguay in front of 200,000 disbelieving fans at Maracana.
It remains one of world football’s most enduring upsets and the loss plunged Brazil into a prolonged state of mourning.
Some 64 years later, Luiz Felipe Scolari’s team has the chance to avenge that famous defeat, but they’ll have to do so in an environment radically different from the football world of yesteryear.
Some 32 nations will convene next June – including newcomers Bosnia and Herzegovina – for a tournament set to take place across the length and breadth of South America’s largest nation.
The latter point makes the tournament an expensive proposition for fans, particularly as the bigwigs at FIFA have inconceivably failed to cluster the group stage geographically.
That means fans will need to arrange internal flights from cities like Curitiba to the virtually unheard of Cuiaba and back to Porto Alegre, purely for the privilege of watching their national team go around.
Even if the distances don’t prove unnerving, then the weather surely will – with June temperatures fluctuating at times by 30 degrees from the chilly lows of Porto Alegre in the deep south, to the Amazonian humidity of Manaus and the dry coastal heat of the north-east.
In other words, this tournament could be a hard slog for fans hoping to experience the essence of what makes Brazil’s football culture so unique.
Quite rightly, tens of thousands of tickets have been set aside for locals, ensuring plenty of Brazilians – or at least those in the middle-class – will enjoy the benefits of hosting a World Cup on home soil.
But as the at-times violent protests at this year’s Confederations Cup demonstrated, a vast section of Brazilian society is angry at the huge sums being spent to finance the tournament in a nation lacking basic infrastructure in some of its largest cities.
One of the most problematic issues is the sheer amount of new stadia the Brazilian government is building, and the tragic death of two construction workers after a roof collapsed at Arena Corinthians yesterday will have done nothing to boost morale.
The vast oversupply of grounds can be attributed to Brazil’s powerful state football federations, which have long controlled the game in a country boasting only a handful of distinct economic bases across the nation.
How is it possibly a good thing that the brand new Arena Pantanal will host the grand sum of four group stage games, when Cuiaba’s two professional clubs are nowhere near Brazil’s top flight?
How is it a good thing to leave a legacy of no less than seven new stadia boasting a capacity in excess of 50,000 seats, when average attendances in Brazil’s Serie A rarely exceed 25,000 at any club?
When FIFA talks about “for the good of the game,” are they referring to the game in Brazil?
Because it seems clear even when the cost of expensive new stadia don’t price Brazil’s lowest income earners out of the domestic competition after the World Cup, those fans who do continue to show up will be left to rattle around in half-empty home grounds.
That seems to be the price of hosting a World Cup these days.
It’s a tournament which means many things to many people, but increasingly those people don’t appear to be football fans.
Chris Norbert
Guest
There's more freedom in Russia than in most "western" countries today.
Matthew Skellett
Roar Rookie
Well actually AZ I prefer to drive to ANZ than drive to the SFS -just park in the sidestreet besides the Fisher and Paykel Showroom/Head Office -plenty of room and its free and its only a short walk in the hindu kush to the stadium
ciudadmarron
Guest
Az, the moveable stands were always part of the plan - it wasn't an afterthought as with the London Olympic stadium. All the same, it still would have been possible to design something that worked even better. Another thing that Olympic stadiums tend to do wrong is fix a low rake. I don't know why this is. Surely for any kind if sporting event a steep incline affords better views and atmosphere? I suppose it's to do with fitting more people in safely. But it's another issue with watching sport there.
ciudadmarron
Guest
The answer is in those events ar. Packed out, special event, anyone is going to enjoy it. Week to week, with smaller crowds, nothing around it by way of a real entertainment hub, no direct way to get there save a drive to a distant expensive gridlocked parking spot... It's a different beast altogether. I do agree though that Sydney on the whole managed the legacy effectively. The parklands etc are well used. New neighborhoods alright, they just need some schools... That's a comment for another publication!
ciudadmarron
Guest
Bread and circuses, said Juvenal, difference is, the Romans knew about corruption and shrugged their shoulders; that was the way the system worked. Pollies didn't get salaries; the whole society was built on graft and influence. We are supposed to be better. The protests show that a shiny toy and even some nationalism won't cut it.
ciudadmarron
Guest
Especially as once you vote out your government..... You still have to host the cup! Did anyone of these "democratic" advocates vote for labor a few years back purely on the basis of a World Cup bid I wonder?
Colin McCann
Guest
The thing is FIFA has mandated that each host city can only have one stadium on the playbill. Sao Paolo and Rio de Janiero and maybe another city might have had enough existing stadia to be renovated at much lower cost, but owing to that rule all of these extra white elephant stadia had to be built at taxpayer expense. Moreover, FIFA's insistence that there will be no plan B has removed any sense of restraint from organizers. Why would they worry about the readiness of the grounds or how affordable they have to be when Brazil is getting the tournament regardless? And it's too late to withdraw and give it to someone else. Imagine how bad the riots would be if Brazil spent all that money and never even hosted a match. The Brazilian organizers bear most blame for the conduct of the preparations, but FIFA effectively wrote them a blank cheque and demanded a massive transaction.
AZ_RBB
Guest
" NZ built only one new stadium (Dunedin) " what a bloody good stadium it is too! a little strange but still awesome.
AZ_RBB
Guest
It holds 30k max. 27k for football. Suncorp holds 52 500 max. With 50k at the 2011 GF. Huge difference!
Felix
Guest
They get real close though. It's the tiers and the height of Lang Park that give it its reputation. Players describe the feeling as having the entire crowd in one wall on top of you. The cheap seats do have some draw backs, yes, but it's a cracking stadium. AAMI is good, very good, but it doesn't have that je ne sais quoi that Suncorp has.
Griffo
Roar Guru
Was that tongue-in-cheek your last line? IIRC the Qatari bid indicated their stadiums were modular and would donate them to Africa post World Cup...
allblackfan
Guest
This was the concern with the Rugby World Cup in NZ -- legacy. In the end, NZ built only one new stadium (Dunedin) and that was because a separate, non-RWC need had been identified for it. The focus went mainly on renovating existing stadia which seems quite puny to the outsider but worked a treat. There has been no legacy issues for NZ to deal with,
Brick Tamland of the Pants Party
Guest
Im looking at camp sites not hotels!
Franko
Guest
Agree Nick, it happens all over the world, sometimes the contrast is more stark or apparent that others, but it is always there. Interestingly France are doing some stadium upgrades for EURO 2016, though I don't think anything too major. Monsieur Flanby already has football offside there, I think football strikes are coming soon.
Franko
Guest
So many quotes from that article AR, and I imagine it is only scratching the surface. I read somewhere else that Brasil has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the world, I imagine Russia and Qatar wouldn't be too far behind.
Australian Rules
Guest
Fair enough. I've never had a problem with it.
Swampy
Guest
I abandoned my plans to attend Brazil when I started looking at accommodation and airfares. Hotel prices are as dear as Perth and flights are possibly going to be worse as there is only a national carrier domestically and they can charge whatever they want without restriction. What I budgeted as a $6000 trip 12 months ago looks like a $10000 adventure. I was going with two others and now only one of us is going to attend. I imagine there will be many people that will find similar scenarios amongst friends. -- Comment from The Roar's iPhone app.
Australian Rules
Guest
That's right. Thousands of (largely) Indians and Bangladeshis being bussed in and out from the desert for 12 hour shifts.
Pclifto
Guest
Travelling through Brazil in 2011, the one thing that really concerned me (thinking about the country's preparations for these two major events) was the lack of decent hotels. Rio is a classic example. One of the most celebrated and iconic beach strips in the world... with almost no mass market (or globally-recognised branded) hotels within reach of Copacabana or Ipanema. The concerning thing was that in 2011 there was little evidence of construction of hotels. So unless they've really put their pedal to the metal, I have a feeling there'll be a lot of people sleeping on the beach in 2014!
Ben of Phnom Penh
Guest
They don't let them live in Doha either. There is a place reserved for them in the desert.