By Eris Hollingshead, staff writer
As this year’s World Cup fans eagerly count down the days until June 12 when the opening match will be held in São Paulo, Brazil, against Spain, Brazil rushes to get everything prepared in time to host such an extravagant event. The country has already faced many other problems in relation to the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Brazil’s World Cup will be the most expensive World Cup to date, already having spent $11.5 billion to build and refurbish 12 stadiums. The 2010 World Cup, hosted by South Africa, was very good at keeping to its budget, managing to only spend a little more that $1 billion. Brazil has already quadrupled its costs from its initial 2007 FIFA spending report.
Eyebrows have definitely been raised at these high costs, and speculation that corruption is involved in the World Cup are going every day. The Mane Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia cost more than three times the original estimate at a whopping $900 million total (making it the second most expensive arena in the world). With discrepancies like these, from the original to the final price, there is no doubt that something else is happening behind the scenes. Dodgy charges, as high as $2.3 million have been spotted on construction bills.
Companies that are most benefiting from the World Cup have been donating very generous amounts of money to political leaders. The politicians are directly working for those who funded their campaigns, making it even harder to fight off the corruption. With the government in their pocket, these big-shot companies can do what they want.
The original plan for the World Cup preparation was to be done by the end of 2013. With under a month before the opening match, many of the stadiums are still under construction. All stadiums were supposed to have test events to make sure that everything is running the right way, but most of these events have been canceled. Even though Brazil has known that they would be hosting the 2014 World Cup since 2007, thing were still put off this late.
A very unfortunate part to this delayed construction is the leverage that the construction companies have on the preparations. They are very well aware that the more delayed things are, the more money they will be walking away with. Since there is no way to postpone the events, they can charge as much as they want in order to meet the deadlines.
Many Brazilians are outraged because they feel like it’s a waste of their tax money to be spent on the World Cup when things like schools, hospitals and roads are in dire need of attention. A song called “Desculpe, Neymar” or “I’m Sorry, Neymar,” written and sung by Edu Kieger, has been hitting social networking sites and being spread around to the show how upset the World Cup is making the Brazilian population. One lyric of the song says, “We won’t be true champions, spending more than $10 billion to just host a World Cup in this country. We have built beautiful stadiums and monuments while the schools and the hospitals are almost collapsing.”
People have also taken to protesting in the streets with signs. In a peaceful protest recently in São Paulo, protesters chanted, “We don’t want a World Cup in Brazil; we want a roof.” Thousands of people who gathered at this protest were involuntarily kicked out of their homes in order to develop the land for new housing, leaving many of them homeless. The group has named themselves the Homeless Worker’s Movement, and they have occupied an empty lot near the stadium that will host the opening match. They are fighting for new affordable housing and protesting against government expenditures.
The World Cup will be held in 12 of Brazil’s major cities starting June 12 in a match between Brazil and Croatia in São Paula and ending with the final on July 13 in Rio de Janeiro.
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