World Cup Brazil 2014

British newspaper Financial Times published yesterday (July 8th 2010) an article: World Cup 2014: march of the white elephants. The President of CBF denies problems, but, as several other posts of this blog show, they indeed exist.

“Even with four years to go before Brazil hosts the 2014 competition, experts reckon at least six of the 12 grounds to be used for games will turn into white elephants when the tournament ends.

Brazil’s football stadiums are old and crumbling and it is to renovate or build 12 arenas at an estimated cost of around R$5.3 bn (around US$2.9 bn). Nine of the 12 grounds are publicly owned and more than 90 percent of that total expenditure is expected to come from public coffers (the publicly owned stadiums suffer with the bureaucracy, whereas the private owned suffer from lack of money). The government development bank is offering a credit line of R$400m ($220m) for each stadium.

However, the planning has so far been typically Brazilian, i.e. bureaucratic, disorganised and slow. In May, football’s governing body FIFA criticised Brazil for being “amazingly late”.

A new report by Brazilian  auditors Crowe Horwath RCS said stadiums in Brasilia, Cuiabá, Fortaleza, Manaus, Natal, and Recife are overly expensive and have little chance of recouping their costs after the tournament.

Stadiums in the larger and richer cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, and Salvador are less of a concern.

The answer is to build smaller stadiums (always an issue with FIFA, which says the smallest World Cup grounds must seat at least 30,000), or make them just one part of a complex that includes shops, hotels, convention centres or other such attractions.

One other option – cutting back the number of venues from 12 to 10 or even eight – is perhaps the most likely. The tardy preparations already have officials publicly suggesting that could happen.

It would save money. And blushes.”

A few weels ago, FIFA officially informed that “Morumbi stadium is excluded from the 2014 FIFA World Cup“. That same note estates that  the “City of São Paulo sent recently to the LOC a sixth project, which will not be examined as it has been received long after the deadline.

Today, Morumbi is the second biggest stadium in Brazil, second only to Maracanã (for 2014, if the respective projects go as planned, other stadia could be bigger than Morumbi, such as Beira-Rio). The stadium belongs to Sao Paulo FC, and for a long time it was the biggest private stadium in the World.

Why then Morumbi, which was claiming to host the opening match of the World Cup, was excluded from the event? The answer is, basically, money.

São Paulo FC owns the stadium, and should pay most expenses to adapt the venue to meet FIFA requirements. It was estimated that it would take R$ 650 million (about US$ 350 million) to implement the design presented to FIFA (the sixth project mentioned by FIFA was an attempt to reduce the cost to R$ 265 million, or about US$ 150 million). It looks like Sao Paulo FC double checked the numbers, and decided that the investment was not worthy.

The public stadiums don’t suffer the same problem, because the Federal Government opened generous credit lines to finance the building or restoring of stadiums; the Governments taking the loans still have to provide collaterals, but Governors don’t hesitate in taking the money – for the World Cup brings immediate political gains, whereas the debts will be paid in the distant future. São Paulo FC and the owners of the other private stadia talked to the Federal Development Bank about loans, but they didn’t get into agreement.

The Governments  of São Paulo (both the State and the city) were not much enthusiastic about pumping money into the project, either. Besides adapting the stadium, FIFA requires extensive changes in the neighbourhood, such as more transportation, more parking space, more and wider access streets – and all of this is incumbent to the Governments.

Morumbi is one of the poshest quarters in Sao Paulo, and the Governments knows that any infrastructure intervention here is very expensive. Both the State and the city of Sao Paulo are ruled by the same Party coalition (more to the right wing than the Federal Government), and they often say that spending money with basic health and education could be wisere than funding the World Cup – the Mayor of Sao Paulo is in South Africa, and declared that “if Sao Paulo can’t host the matches, so be it”.

It is not a coincidence that, along with Sao Paulo, Curitiba is the host city which causes most preoccupation to CBF. The stadium of Curitiba, Arena da Baixada, is also private owned, and the city is also known for being a wise spender of public money. And it will be no surprise if Beira-Rio, in Porto Alegre (the third private owned stadium), also becomes reason of concern soon.

Today, June 11th 2010, we saw the opening match of the World Cup 2010 (South Africa 1 x 1 Mexico).

At the very moment that the ball started rolling (4 pm, local time), the temperature in Johannesburg was 18º C (64º F); the matches which happen at night experienced even lower temperatures. And, as the Southern Hemisphere moves into winter, the temperatures should fall even more.

Update: on June 15th, the day that Brazil played against North Korea, the temperature in Johannesburg was -4º C (-24º F).

Considering that Brazil is also in the Southern Hemisphere, what temperatures can be expected during the World Cup, which should take place between June and July of 2014?

The graphs below show the expected weather for today, June 6th 2010, in all Brazilian cities which will stage games of the Cup. The graphs show minimum temperature, maximum temperature, sunny/rainy weather and intensity of Ultra-Violet rays.

In the cities by the sea (namely: Natal, Recife, Fortaleza, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro), average temperatures are high, even during the winter. In Manaus and Cuiabá, which are located near the Equatorial Line, temperatures are also high during all year.

In the Southern cities of Porto Alegre and Curitiba, temperatures are expected to be low during the matches. Visitors should definitively bring their coats.

Belo Horizonte and São Paulo are located near the Tropic Line, and both are at a high altitude (around 800 m, 2,500 ft); this makes the weather of these cities more unpredictable.

The World Cup 2014 will be warmer than the World Cup 2010.

One of the most serious concerns of the organizers of the World Cup 2010 is with the violence in South Africa; and the preoccupation is not so much with episodic terrorist attacks (which can be more easily controlled), but with the day to day violence (assaults, stray bullets, gang fights), which may kill people anytime, anywhere – and whose solution takes years of concerted planning and work.

This problem afflicts the organizers of the World Cup 2014, as well. And no other city is more under scrutiny than Rio de Janeiro, the most important of the host cities of the Cup, and the host of the Olympic Games of 2016.

Rio is aware of the responsibility, and is taking measures to reduce violence.

For many years the Government treated violence combat as a war, where the enemies (mostly drug traffickers) should be killed; this is well portrayed in the movie City of God (which is voted as one of the 20 best movies of all times). The problem with this strategy is that many innocent civilians are also killed, and the survivors start to see the Police as an enemy as evil as the traffickers; and, whereas Police come and go, the traffickers are always around.

Recently, the strategy was changed. The Government is now creating UPP – Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora – Pacifying Police Units – in the most violent areas of Rio.

Every UPP has a physical structure, with a well sized staff. The Police officers  (as much as possible, only recently recruited people) are assigned to an specific UPP, hence creating links with the community.  In case the goals to reduce violence are met, the UPP staff gain a salary bonus.

Besides, along with every UPP (and the subsequent reduction in violence), the Government builds schools, health centers, leisure spaces; and trailing the Government, come the utilities companies (electricity, transportation, internet, etc).

The idea is to make the communities (whose vast majority is composed by honest, working people) believe that, rather than violence and traffic,  now the Law and Order should reign.

The graphic to the left shows that, even though there is still a long way to go, the levels of violence in Rio have been consistently decreasing.

Number of murderers is coming to 30 per 100,000 inhabitants; for comparison, in South Africa this figure is about 49.6 per 100,000 (source is here; figure quoted as of June 2010, and may change in the future).

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.

Since 2007, Brazil knew that we would host the World Cup, and since May 2009, the host cities knew they would stage matches; even so, after all this time, very little has been done to prepare Brazil for the World Cup (there are delays in stadiums, airports, telecom, transportation, etc).

Below, a few reasons which attempt to explain the delays.

First: cultural habits. Brazilians (particularly Governments) do not have the habit of planning, and, if planning, do not have the habit of keeping to the planned. Any foreign visitor who needs to have an appointment with a doctor knows that Brazilians do not keep time. A national institution in Brazil is the jeitinho, which could be translated as “not doing things the proper and timely way, but trying to make ends meet in a cunning way at the latest time”; unfortunely, FIFA doesn’t tolerate such methods.

Brazil lacks the money. Building a stadium, opening new highways, refurbishing airports, all this costs lots of money. Despite the enthusiasm that Governors and Mayors have demonstrated towards the economic potentials of a World Cup, the money isn’t in the coffers yet, and budget limitations sooner or later bring things to reality. A city such as Natal has a budget of about R$ 8 billion (source), and clearly can not invest R$ 1 billion for the Cup.

Legal limitations. Nine out of the twelve stadiums of the World Cup will be built or refurbished by the Governments. All Government contracts must follow an specific law; this law imposes minimum periods for bidders to present proposals – and if a bidder disagrees with the results, a dispute in Courts may last years.

After the bidding process is finished, then Government and contractors must get all apropriate licenses, such as technical, Historic heritage, environment approvals. Getting licenses to build a new draining and sewage system carved under an old heritage stadium such as Fonte Nova, in Salvador, following all applying norms, can take a lot of time (things could be sped up if they had been planned before hand, but they were not).

Private stadiums (only three: Morumbi, Arena da Baixada, Beira Rio) are not restrained by the bidding laws. On the other hand, the owner of the stadiums will think twice before investing their money in an enterprise with unknown returns: is it worthy to invest US$ 200 million in a stadium to stage three or four matches?

Each of these factors could delay a project for a few months; put them all together, and the result is a several months delay.

Yesterday, FIFA General Secretary asked in an interview if the works for the World Cup would start only after carnival.

Today, newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, one of the most important in Brazil, published a report today about the FIFA concerns with the delays in Brazil.

Translation:

“FIFA is starting to plan for changes in the list of cities and stadiums which should host matches of the World Cup 2014. Decisions shall be made after the visit of the Local Organising Committee, between May 5th and 20th, to the 12 host cities. Among the decisions, one is probably to rule out Morumbi as one of the stadiums; another, very likely as well, is to replace the host cities which are not complying with the deadlines.

Cities which were not chosen as hosts, such as Goiânia and Belém, may be recalled now. In Johannesburg, FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke abandoned diplomacy, criticized the delay in the works of the stadium, and warned: Brazil must work hard to earn the rights to host the World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games 2016.

These visits to check out the stadiums and to assess the schedules of the works in each of the cities (first visit to Sao Paulo and last one to Salvador), will provide FIFA with information to, after September, make the necessary changes to avoid a fiasco in 2014.

FIFA want all stadia ready by December 2012, one year and a half before the World Cup and six months before the Confederations Cup, and do not consider to cut down the number of host cities.

The problem is that less than half of the cities has any works started. FIFA is regreting to have allowed Brazil to be the only candidate to host the Cup. These strong declarations by FIFA staff are complaints which were already being heard in the backstages; behind closed doors, FIFA had alread lost patience with Brazil.

At FIFA, still nobody talks about the possibility of replacing Brazil as host country of 2014. Valcke assured that such possibility doesn’t exist right now, even with FIFA admitting that there countries which could get ready for the event in a very short notice.

FIFA changed their proceedings to accept the Brazilian requests, but Brazil assured that everything would be made within time, which is not happening.”

On March 3rd 2010, FIFA was informed that the works in all stadiums for the World Cup 2014 were behind schedule; at that occasion, CBF and FIFA determined a new deadline: by May 3rd, every stadium should have at least started works – building or refurbishing – to catch up with FIFA’s schedule.

Today, May 3rd, exactly two months later, barely anything changed.

According to international news sources,  FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke declared: “I got a report on the status quo of the Brazilian stadiums. I have to say it is not very nice. There are a number (of stadiums) with red lights already, which is amazing. It is amazing how Brazil is already late. And I am not just talking about Morumbi or Maracana stadiums, I am talking about a number of stadiums.”

Much more bombastic, though, was an interview to Brazilian newspaper O Globo (click here); according to the newspaper, Volcke said:

I asked Ricardo Teixeira (president of CBF): how come you signed all those documents and don’t comply with them? We don’t want a rushed World Cup, organized at the last minute.

This year, you have Presidential election, nothing is going to happen. Next year, there is carnival. Are you going to start working only after carnival?

See also repercussions at Yahoo and Reuters.

Asked whether FIFA would consider to cut down the number of host cities from twelve to eight, Vakcke said that “for the time being, we have 12 host cities and we are not in a period where we have to make decisions”.

Last year, FIFA appointed the 12 Brazilian cities which should host matches of the World Cup 2014.

Last week, the Minister of Sports in Brazil, when talking about the delays in the works of the stadia, said that some cities could be excluded from the list of hosts; a few hours later, the Minister withdrew, and said that there are no plans of excluding any city.

FIFA demands a minimum of eight host cities. South Africa will have nine host cities and Germany had twelve. Does Brazil need to have twelve host cities? Can Brazil afford it?

The decision to approve the final host cities is up to FIFA; FIFA will certainly listen to CBF before taking a decision. FIFA and CBF see the World Cup as a business, which must return a profit.

It was by a request of the Brazilian Government that 12 cities were appointed as hosts (and there were still other candidates). The Government hopes to gain world exposition to as many cities as possible, during the World Cup. That would be good.

However, what’s the cost of such diversification?

The first stage of the Cup has eight groups, with four countries each; each group will have six matches. It’s only in this first stage that any host city may claim to host matches; past that, when come the rounds of 16, 8, quarter finals, semi finals and final, matches become more and more important, and FIFA will direct them to the bigger cities and stadia.

So, it is likely that smaller cities such as Manaus, Cuiabá and Natal, will end up building a stadium to host only three matches of the World Cup. These cities don’t have strong local teams to occupy the stadia once the Cup is finished. Past experiences have shown that a World Cup can drain host city’s coffers.

Besides, distances in Brazil are much longer than in South Africa or Europe. Transportation infrastructure in Brazil is poor. By lack of money or of competence, the works in all stadia are delayed. FIFA was concerned with the dealys in South Africa, and will try to avoid the same mistakes in Brazil.

It will be no surprise if FIFA decides to reduce the number of host cities in Brazil.

Today, April 21st 2010, Brasilia is celebrating its 50th anniversary; Brasilia was designed and built to be the Federal capital of Brazil.

Brasilia is one of the host cities of the World Cup 2014, and not an ordinary one. Given that the final match of the Cup will be in Maracanã, Brasilia is disputing with other major cities (like Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte) the privilege to host the opening match, or, at least, one of the semifinals.

And that was not very difficult to happen. The Government of Brasilia is planning to build the second largest stadium for 2014, the National Stadium, with a capacity of 71,000 people; meanwhile, Morumbi, the stadium in Sao Paulo, is having trouble to adapt to FIFA’s demands (last week, FIFA, instead of ruling out final matches in Morumbi,  euphemistically said that the stadium is ready to host Group Games of the Cup). Besides, there is a strong political interest to put Brasilia under the spotlights during the Cup.

What  can a traveler do in Brasilia?

Firstly, it is worth noticing that, thanks to the central position, the airport of Brasilia is one of the main hubs in Brazil; many flights connecting the South, North and Northeast of Brazil stop over in Brasilia. This means that will be rather easy to go to Brasilia and from there to any other host city.

Most Seats of Power in Brasilia are open to visitation. Within a mile walk around Three Powers Square, one can visit the Brazilian Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court; several Ministries (such as the Foreign Relations and the Justice) are also open. Oscar Niemeyer, the architect who designed most buildings in Brasilia, scattered monuments all over the city, most of which are in open air or open to visitation (the National Theater, the Cathedral, the National Museum, JK Memorial).

Brasilia was designed with quality of life in mind. Residences and services are laid out orderly, to make transit and daily life easier. Being the city with the highest average income in Brazil, Brasilia has certainly sereral shopping centers and a busy nightlife. There are several environment friendly areas (the Parque da Cidade and the Lago Paranoá are the most outstanding examples). Climbing the TV Tower is the best way to have an overview of Brasilia landscape.

Brasilia has a very strong spiritual side (not to be confused with religious side). Many believe that Brasilia is the realization of a prophecy by Italian priest Dom Bosco, who dreamt of a new Canaan in the Tropics; Dom Bosco followers have several sanctuaries in Brasilia. Good Will Legion, one the largest philantropic institutions in Brazil, has headquarters in Brasilia, with several worshiping places; the Good Will Temple was built under a pyramid which is said be mystic. Visiting Brasilia is a good way to recharge one’s spiritual forces.

And then there are places to see in the neighbourhood. Brasilia is entirely surrounded by the State of Goiás, which maintains traditions of the old country side cities. The old city of Goiás is a World Heritage Site. Pirenopolis is well known for the waterfalls, colonial architecture and traditional feasts with roots in Colonial times. And several cities around Brasilia offer trips to know the Cerrado, one of the Brazilian biomas.

Brasilia doesn’t have the beaches of the Northeast of Brazil, the grandness of Sao Paulo, the cultural diversity of the South; however, there are attractions to keep a visitor busy for several days.