Is it all about to kick off in Brazil?
Renan Oliveira Martins isn't so sure about this year's World Cup. The 20-year-old Brazilian student arrived in Dublin three months ago, leaving behind him a country in something of a crisis. Over the course of the last year Brazil has seen an upsurge in protests and rioting and on the face of it; it's all because of football.
“I don't know if I'm happy about it,” says the Paulistano. “The opening game is in my city. It's going to be a big party but there's a lot of problems with the stadia and the infrastructure of the city. At every point [in the build-up] the government have said that they'd spend a certain quantity of money and they [end up] spending ten times more. For sure people would prefer the government to spend money on health and education and public transport which in Sao Paulo is terrible.”
Renan's point on public transport is fitting. It was of course a 7% hike on Rio de Janeiro's bus and subway fares that sparked protests all over the country last year and sent images to a surprised world of a football crazy country being not so crazy about the game's greatest tournament coming to their shores.
When Brazil was awarded the event in 2007 the country was ecstatic. Where better to have an event than in the home of the beautiful game; a country which as part of the BRIC economies was, everyone believed, dragging itself away from the image of gun-toting lawlessness. This World Cup, according to President Dilma Rousseff, would be the “Cup of Cups”. Along with the Rio Olympics, it was the excuse the country needed to tie up its bootlaces and get its house in order. With this event, Brazil would announce its arrival onto the world stage as a serious first world country. It would party as it always has done but this time it would be wearing a suit.
So far it hasn't quite worked out. With five weeks to go until the first game of the tournament, between Brazil and Croatia, kicks off in Renan's hometown, Sao Paolo some officials both in Brazil and FIFA are getting jittery. Two weeks ago, 32-year-old Muhammed Ali Alfonso was electrocuted when working on Arena Pantanal in the Western province of Mato Grasso. His was the eighth casualty in the construction of World Cup's twelve stadiums. Work on the site had to be stoped, further slowing down its construction and adding to the organisers' woes.
Arena Pantanal is one of three stadiums that have yet to be completed. There are other infrastructural problems. In Curitiba, work on the media centre has been abandoned while contractors in Cuiaba have admitted that a light rail link there will not be completed until 2015. There is some good news. After a wait of fourteen years Fortalezza finally has its first underground. But the fact that work on airports and infrastructure in other cities is struggling to be done is worrying – the pile of tinder is getting bigger.
“When Brazil was chosen to have the World Cup everybody celebrated,” says Thiago Crema Sampaio from Sao Paolo. “At the time many politicians used the World Cup to say: 'Ah! We will improve the airport, we will improve the roads, the infrastructure' but after three years we see it's not true. The airport is still the same and the infrastructure is still the same. Then we don't even know where the money [for the stadiums] comes from.
"First they say it came from FIFA, but like the stadium in our city Sao Paolo; we don't know where the money came from but we know it's public money. So three or four years ago when they started to calculate the budget and how much they'd spend on the buildings the people started to be a little angry because on some stadiums they spent almost one billion Real (E330m). These will be, I think the expression is white elephant. They'll be in places where nobody will watch the games.”
In Brasilia, the country's political capital, construction on a 71,000 seat stadium finished at the end of 2012 at a cost of over R$1bn. This was almost double the estimate originally presented. According to one report the increase in costs was caused by the bidding of the cover, the pitch and the chairs, "which were not included in the original budget".
“Brasilia is the capital but it's a small city and they don't have big [club] teams there,” says Thiago. “So they build a huge stadium there and after that nothing will happen this stadium.”
Of course those involved in the preparation of the tournament say that when the visiting fans have all gone home, stadiums will be used for other purposes. One stadium, in Fortaleza, will form part of bigger sports village which will host Brazil's Olympic team for future Olympiads. But among Brazilians the suspicion remains that they are being sold a pup. Last year's riots may have been sparked by an increase in bus fares but at the heart of the issue is a frustration with politicians who are regularly found to be taking from the Brazilian till.
“We know that they are taking money for themselves,” says Natalia Couto Maduro. “They could do what they have to do with much less. They are doing the stadium and doing something to get people to the stadium but they are not improving the [overall] transportation.”
On top of this is the continuing spectre of violence. In an effort to sort out Brazil's infamous favelas, government and police have been accused of being heavy-handed. Most recently, the death of a well-known dancer who was seemingly caught in a shoot-out between police and drug dealers in a Rio de Janeiro favela sparked an outpouring of grief and rage amongst favela-dwellers already being pushed to the limits of their patience. Police and gangs are now involved in a game of tit-for-tat murders. Under-resourced police are struggling to cope and in the northern city of Recife they have even gone on strike.
As if that weren't bad enough, something of a malevolent cloud has gathered over football in Brazil. It's thought that 30 people died last year as a result of football-related violence. In December 2013 a helicopter was deployed to airlift an injured fan from a pitch he had invaded with others at a game involving Atletico Paranaense and Vasco da Gama. In February, players of one of the country's biggest clubs, Corinthians, threatened to strike after their training ground was invaded by about one hundred fans angry at their 5 – 1 loss to rivals Santos.
Of course every tournament has its problems; the London Olympics had its security debacle, Athens just about made it to its opening Olympic ceremony and most recently Sochi had its issues with re-housing (forcibly relocating) people for the Winter Olympics.
In those cases, the vast majority of the populace were behind the games. In Brazil many people simply believe that they cannot afford to be and they are surely to be commended for refusing to stay quiet when schools and hospitals re crumbling around them.
Dilma Rousseff will certainly be hoping that her luck changes. The President is facing into an election in October. Three and a half years ago when she took over from Lula, she probably looked forward to this year's elections with glee – ‘give them bread and circuses’. At this stage only a win for Brazil – it would be their sixth – would save her. But even that might not be enough.
Tune in to Around the World with Jonathan, every Monday at 3pm on Moncrieff, Newstalk 106-108fm.
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