Financial Times writes about the stadiums in Brazil
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July 9th, 2010
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.”
July 11th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
[...] Financial Times writes about the stadiums in Brazil Welcome to World Cup Brazil [...]
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:46 pm
[...] said nothing new: the Financial Times had already said that the stadiums would become white elephants; it is well known that FIFA and CBF make decisions based largely on financial and political [...]