World Cup Brazil 2014

Natal is one of the host cities of the World Cup 2014 which are located in the northeast of Brazil; this entire region, in the vicinity of the Equatorial line, is marked by tropical sceneries and beautiful beaches.

Natal, in particular, has a high concentration of dunes; one of the slogans of Natal is City of Dunes; the dunes of Genipabu are the main tourist attraction of Natal. It is no wonder that the new complex to be built to host the Cup matches has been called Arena das Dunas (Arena of Dunes).

The stadium will have capacity of 45,000 people. Estimated cost of the Arena alone: between R$ 300 and R$ 400 million.  Below, an artistic night view of Arena das Dunas.

The current Natal stadium, called Machadão (State owned), will be demolished and the new arena will take its place.

The project comprehends also the building of  new Administrative Centers for the city of Natal and the State of Rio Grande do Norte (currently, there are already several State administrative buildings in the area, which will also be demolished), a shopping center, a hotel, and several residential and commercial buildings. Below, a view of the complex.

Natal is one of the most environment conscious cities in Brazil. The entire project will follow environment friendly guidelines. The lagoon shown in the image below is a reconstruction of an old lagoon which used to exist in that neighbourhood (which, by the way, is called Lagoa Nova, or New Lagoon).

Dunes and lagoons are closely associated formations: the dunes filter the rain water, which migrate downwards until finding a more solid layer deeper in the soil; if there are a large number of dunes in a small area (as it happens in Natal), water will accumulate in the space between them, hence forming lagoons.

On June 1st 2009, FIFA announced the twelve host cities of the World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

There was a big expectation about those host cities. These cities will benefit in several aspects from the World Cup, such as investments in infrastructure and massive international marketing.

Some of the cities knew that they would be a host. Rio de Janeiro is the best known city in Brazil (Maracanã is already defined as stage of the final match); Sao Paulo is the richest city in Brazil; Brasilia, the capital of the country (Sao Paulo and Brasilia are still fighting to host the opening match of the Cup); Salvador, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Porto Alegre are important economic and cultural regional hubs of Brazil.

So, this makes eight cities with a guaranteed spot. It was of interest of the Brazilian Government and CBF that cities representatives of all regions in Brazil were chosen, so as to show to the world the rich variety of Brazilian culture and scenarios. The other four cities were chosen according to these criterium.

So, in the Northeast of Brazil, the region where the sun shines all year long, the cities of Natal and Fortaleza were chosen. These cities are rather small, but are popular destinations for Brazilian tourists; the well developed tourist infrastructure (hotels, airports, etc) was a big advantage of these cities.

There had to be a host in the Amazon, a region of Brazil which attracts world attention. Rio Branco was a candidate, but, too far into the jungle and with poor infrastructure, had no chances; Manaus and Belém were the stronger candidates. Belém had the advantage of being nearer the rest of Brazil and the rest of the world. Manaus won, thanks to a stronger political influence and probably because it is located deeper into the Amazon (an eco-tourism network, albeit incipient, is better developed in Manaus than in Belém).

Likewise, there should be a host in Pantanal, the Brazilian wetlands, one of the richest ecosystems in the World; Cuiaba and Campo Grande were the candidates.  Campo Grande is located right in the middle of Pantanal, and was favorite to win; however, thanks to a better project, Cuiabá was chosen.

Besides Belém and Campo Grande, other Brazilian cities were candidates to host but were not chosen: Goiânia (despite having one of the most modern stadiums in Brazil, the Serra Dourada) was too close to Brasília, and CBF wanted to spread the hosts; Florianópolis is a mid sized city in the South, with a strong European heritage, and was surprisingly not chosen (Natal took the place of Florianópolis).

So, these cities were candidates to host, but didn’t make it: Campo Grande, Goiânia, Florianópolis, Rio Branco and Belém.