World Cup Brazil 2014

The Brazilian Head Comission for the World Cup 2014  (represented by the President of CBF) and the National Council of Justice (represented by the President Justice of Supreme Federal Court) signed an agreement, by which the parties start a project to include as many ex-convicts as possible to work in the building of the stadia for the World Cup.

These buildings are going to create millions of jobs (particularly for less educated people), and the Comission sees this as an opportunity of social reinclusion for many ex-convicts who made a mistake and paid their debts with the society; the idea is that the major building companies reserve a share of the jobs for ex-convicts.

Ricardo Teixeira, president of CBF, admitted that the entity can not oblige  the companies to hire anyone, but said that “the companies will understand the social importance of the project and will comply with the Comissions’ goals”.

Gilmar Mendes, Justice of the Supreme Court, revealed that the project was suggested by FIFA’s Secretary, Jerome Valcke, when he visited Brazil last year to attend the Futsal World Cup.

At that occasion, Valcke was introduced to the project  “Starting Over” (Começar de Novo); Valcke found the project very positive and suggested CBF to join it. The goal of  Starting Over is, first, to release convicts who are jailed for crimes that they didn’t commit (according to the Council of Justice, 30% of the 450,000 inmates in Brazilian prisons are in such situation); and then, Starting Over helps those ex-convicts to find jobs in the building sector.

It’s the World Cup giving opportunities to the less fortunate classes in Brazil.

On October 16th, the Brazilian team was beaten by Ghana, and finished second of the FIFA Under 20 World Cup, which took place in Cairo, Egypt. After 120 minutes of match, none of the teams managed to score a goal; the decision was in penalties shoot-outs (Brazilians lost three penalties in a row).

The line-up of the Brazilian team in the final match was: Rafael, Douglas (Wellington Junior), Dalton, Rafael Tolói and Diogo; Renan (Maicon), Souza, Giuliano and Paulo Henrique (Douglas Costa); Alex Teixeira and Alan Kardec.
Alex Teixeira was awarded the silver ball of the tournament, and Giuliano was awarded the bronze ball.

As these players are all younger than 20, they will be younger than 25 by the time of the 2014 World Cup. So, it’s natural to think that some of these players will be in the Brazilian team of 2014.

None of them, however, seems to be a strong candidate for a star. None of them is an important player in their clubs.

Today, October 2nd 2009,  Rio de Janeiro was chosen as the host city of the Summer Olympic Games of 2016 (see movie; see report by the BBC); Rio was competing with Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago.

Rio is one the host cities of the World Cup in Brazil (almost certainly, Maracanã, Rio’s stadium, will stage the final match of the Cup) in 2014. So, Rio will be the only city to host consecutive editions of the two most important sports events in the World, the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympic Games.

Rio was already anticipating massive investments in infrastructure, notably accommodation, telecommunications and transportation. Now, even more investments, towards sports structure, are being planned for the city.

Brazil has never won a gold medal in Olympic football. Brazilian fans now have more hope to win FIFA’s and Olympics’ titles at home.

To follow news about Olympics in Rio, check out the official site.