World Cup Brazil 2014

Morumbi is a private stadium, owned by Sao Paulo Futebol Clube, situated in the city of São Paulo (Saint Paul). Sao Paulo FC is the Brazilian team with most titles in the national league (six times, last one in 2008) and most world team championship titles (1992, 1993 and 2005).

The official name of Morumbi is Estádio Cícero Pompeu de Toledo; mr. Toledo was ex-President of Sao Paulo FC, the one who purchased the land where the stadium would be built – the land was acquired in 1951, and the first match in Morumbi occurred in 1960, Sao Paulo 1 x 0 Sporting Lisboa. In 1950, the matches of World Cup Brazil in Sao Paulo were staged at the  Pacaembu stadium; Pacaembu, owned by the city of São Paulo, is still active, but won’t stage any matches in 2014.

The word Morumbi is of indigenous origin and means Colina Verde (Green Hill); Morumbi is also the name of a neighbourhood of Sao Paulo, one of the poshest (‘to live in Morumbi’ is a slang for being a rich person).

Morumbi is the largest private stadium in Brazil; currently, Maracanã (in Rio de Janeiro) and Mineirão (in Belo Horizonte), both State owned, are bigger than Morumbi. The original capacity was 120,000 attendants; in early 1990s, for security reasons, it was decreased to 85,000; in mid 1990s, further refurbishments caused an additional reduction to current 75,000 attendants. The largest attendance for a football match was in November of 1977, when Corinthians became champion after 24 years, with an audience of 146,082 people.

Morumbi will be remodeled again for the 2014 Cup. The estimated new capacity is 65,000 people. The  project presented to FIFA was signed by Ruy Othake, one of the best Brazilian (of Japanese origin) architects.

Like all stadia which are being remodeled, Morumbi would provide more security, more technology, better integration with the transportation network, more environment oriented use of resources.

Several problems, however, hang over the new project. The owner of Morumbi, Sao Paulo FC, expects some funding from State budgets to rebuild the stadium. Governor of Sao Paulo, José Serra, known for being tight to spend money, has declared that it is up to Sao Paulo FC to bring Morumbi to FIFA standards. In 2007, powerful President of CBF Ricardo Teixeira had declared that no public money would be used to build or refurbish stadia for the World Cup 2014. In August 2009, Teixeira declared that the public stadia could receive public financing, but the private stadia (Morumbi, Beira-Rio and Arena da Baixada) wouldn’t. And in September, the official Brazilian Bank of Development announced the opening of financing lines for all the stadia, public and private.

This doesn’t resolve all the problems, though. Sao Paulo FC is hesitant to take loans to expand Morumbi, because it is uncertain whether the financial return after the Cup would pay the debts. President of FIFA Joseph Blatter declared in a recent interview that Morumbi is not up to standards, and matches in Sao Paulo can be moved to Pacaembu.

Despite all problems, it is very likely that Morumbi, given the importance of São Paulo, will be the stadium of the opening match of the World Cup 2014.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 9:27 pm and is filed under cities, stadium.