World Cup Brazil 2014

Brazilian newspapers are reporting that President Lula approved a law which, supposedly, improves on safety and organization of sports events in Brazil; as commented on this other post, this new law is actually an amendment to an older law, which was already good enough.

The main changes brought about by this new amendment are: rioting is now a crime (it was an infraction, punishable with restrictions to attending events – now it is punishable with imprisonment); frauding results of games is now a crime (with this law, this referee would have been arrested); ticket scalping is now a crime.

Ticket scalping (the action of buying tickets for face value and sell it for market value) is common in Brazil. Given the lack of organization of Brazilian football, it is often better to buy tickets from a scalper, and save the time and headache needed to buy tickets at the official box offices.

The situation in Brazil is different from other countries, where ticket arbitrage is common – stubhub is just an online ticket scalper. In Brazil, it is common that people with privileged rights (for example, the staffs of the clubs involved in an important match) retain batches of tickets and pass them over to the scalpers.

So the law now consider as crimes:
- selling tickets for prices higher than face value: from one to two years in jail
- facilitating ticket scalping (i.e., providing tickets for ticket scalpers to sell): from two to four years in jail
- if the facilitator has privileged access to tickets: from four to six years in jail

Enforcement of this law is unlikely, EXCEPT, of course, during the World Cup, when FIFA will use their power to protect their financial interests.

Many foreigners see Brazil as a country without laws. That is not true. The problem in Brazil is that people do not obey the laws.

Brazil have several laws which are as advanced as their counterparts in developed countries.  The Brazilian Code of Defense of Consumers, for example, dates back to 1990, and has been proven effective to protect many consumers who know how to fight for their rights.

The Brazilian National Transit Code is another example of a modern law. If the nearly 300 articles were obeyed by drivers, Brazil would be one of the best countries in the World to drive. The law imposes duties to the Administration (unsafe cars should not be licensed), to drivers (even change lanes without blinking the lights is an infraction), pedestrians (jaywalking is an infraction in Brazil), the Police (alcohol limit is zero – the Police must fine or arrest drunk drivers), the Justice, etc. Nonetheless, per year, 42,000 people die in transit accidents in Brazil.

Today, Brazilian newspapers inform that President Lula approved a law to decrease violence and improve organization in the Sports events in Brazil.

This new law, Law 12.299, from July 27th 2010, is actually just an amendment to the Law 10.671, from May 15th 2003, which in the first article declares: “This Statute establishes norms for the protection and defense of Sports Fans“.  The law applies to all sports events, and not only football (events like the matches of the Brazilian Volleyball Teams or the Formula One GP should also observe this law).

Just like the Transit Code, the Sports Fans law is very detailed, but has been ignored by everyone.

Some articles of the law:

- all events should have an ombudsman, to whom all fans should have open access, and who should respond to all complaints by the fans;

- every fan must be insured, right from the moment he enters the venue; there must be one doctor, two nurses and one ambulance for every 10,000 fans (article 16); fact: there is not even room for more than two ambulances.

- it is a right of fans to be safe; a plan of action covering safety, transportation and contingencies must be implemented at every sports event (article 17); see here.

- venues with capacity higher than 20,000 must have camera surveillance (article 18);

- it is a right of fans that tickets must be put on sale no later than 72 hours before the starting of the match; a receipt of sale of tickets must be provided (article 20); see here.

- all tickets must be numbered, and there must be a seat matching the ticket number (article 22); in Brazil, this is impossible - see here;

- transportation system must be safe and organized; parking space must be available to all fans, and special means of transportation must be available to people with accessibility deficiencies (articles 26 and 27); fact: parking and accessibility is a major problem for most stadiums – the renovation of Morumbi would cost much less if Sao Paulo hadn’t to purchase lots to turn into parking space.

- food and sanitaries must be clean and hygienic (articles 28 and 29); ah, ah, ah.

- in case of violation of this law, the entities which organize the events will be penalized, and the President of the organizing entity shall be destituted (article 37); in the case of football, such entity is CBF;

- fans who promote riot, practice or incite violence, should be prohibited from attending sports event, for a period no shorter than three months (article 39).

So far, nobody cared about really enforcing this law.

If FIFA and CBF use their powers to oblige the Brazilian authorities to enforce the law, that would be an important legacy for Brazil post-2014.

For the World Cup 2010, FIFA partnered with some travel agencies to offer travel packages to South Africa; by buying packages with these agencies, visitors could rest assured that they would have accommodation and tickets to watch matches.

However, Brazilian visitors have reported that these FIFA travel packages lack flexibility.

All visitors who bough packages in Brazilian agencies were accommodated in only two cities: Durban and Cape Town; according to the managers of the travel agencies, these cities were chosen because they offer the better infrastructure, and also have other attractions to entertain tourists in between the games.

The problem, however, is that  to attend the games in Johannesburg, the tourists had to take a 24 hour trip.

This problem could be repeated in Brazil in 2014. Tour operators will probably try to accommodate visitors in cities with a good supply of hotels and with easy connectivity to the other host cities.

So, it is likely that most customers of these packages will stay in the cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro (these two cities are by far the ones with most hotel rooms) and Brasilia (not so many rooms, but plenty of air flights connections).

For those who are planning to travel around Brazil during the Cup, or just want to stay closer to their teams, it is recommended to shop around; buying air tickets and booking hotels directly with tour operators (rather than buying a closed package) will probably be cheaper and will allow a more flexible schedule.

Source: Google and France Press.

According to Jerome Valcke, Secretary Genral, FIFA has learned its lesson from problems with Internet ticket sales in South Africa and will overhaul its pricing and ticketing ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

FIFA made two major mistakes in the World Cup 2010: when initially made available, tickets could only be purchased after a complicated registration process in the internet; and prices of tickets sold for South African citizens only were considered expensive (see prices of tickets in 2010).

Last April, FIFA eased the rules, and started selling tickets over the counter and also increased the number of the least expensive tickets reserved for South Africans.

The measures were not enough to remedy the situation. In the rest of Africa, sales fell 76 percent below original predictions, with only 11,300 African visitors expected for the tournament, said South Africa’s Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk; the Minister vehemently blamed ”unaffordable pricing” and the exclusive use of the Internet sales channel, which he called “a huge mistake”.

South Africa is now expecting 300,000 foreign visitors for the tournament, 150,000 less than originally predicted

“We will start all ticketing policies from scratch for 2014. It could be that we would be facing some similar problems in Brazil”, Volcke added.