World Cup Brazil 2014

In a meeting with the Local Committee, the city of Belo Horizonte presented officially a claim to host the opening match of the World Cup 2014; representatives of the city (including the Mayor) produced a document with 54 projects, covering infrastructure, urban mobility, tourism and hotels, marketing and communication, public utilities and FIFA requirements.

According to city’s representatives, the main concern of FIFA is Mineirao stadium. FIFA wants the stadium of the opening match to fit as many viewers as possible, as well as 7 thousand journalists. After Mineirao is refurbished, it should fit about 70,000 attendants.

Some say that Belo Horizonte won’t have hotel beds to accommodate visitors, but the city disagrees; representatives confirm that Belo Horizonte lacks high standard hotels, but this isn’t too big a problem either (15 new hotels are being built, some of them of  ”very high standards”).

According to them, based on statistics from past Cups, the city of the opening match should have a number of beds around 40% of the stadium capacity; Belo Horizonte has today 34,000 beds in a radius of 100 km (60 miles) from the stadium, which should be enough.

The State is planning investments in the international airport of Confins, which should increase capacity from current 5 million to more than 10 million passengers per year in 2014.  At the same time, the airport of Pampulha, five minutes drive from Mineirao, will also be refurbished, and will be used by private and corporate jets.

Other cities are also interested in staging the opening match. The strongest candidates, besides Belo Horizonte, are Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Porto Alegre.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 9:55 pm and is filed under cities, stadium, travel.