After waiting four years since the 2010 FIFA World Cup, soccer fans around the world today will celebrate the kickoff to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. While the players and fans are ready to get the tournament underway, the same cannot be said about the entire Brazilian infrastructure. Brazil spent $3.6 billion building or renovating 12 stadiums to be used for the tournament’s 64 matches. As with many recent international sporting events, there has been a lot of controversy about building high capacity, expensive stadiums that will not be needed once the World Cup finishes. Anthony Boadle from Reuters recently wrote an article detailing the finished and unfinished parts of Brazilian infrastructure projects that were promised to be ready for the tournament kick-off. He found that three stadiums are not finished, six will not have wi-fi inside of the stadiums, and many upgrades to the country’s airports, ports, and urban transit were not completely finished. Some journalists are saying Brazil is the least prepared host of any of the previous 16 world cup host nations.
The most controversial stadium that was built is located in Manaus, a city of two million located in the Amazon rainforest. The stadium is barely accessible by car and will not be used by a top-flight Brazilian club after the tournament. The team that will move into the 40,000-seat stadium averages 4,000 fans per game, well under the 14,000 national average attendance for club games in the country. It is also not completely finished yet. There are exposed cables hanging throughout the stadium, and the players have been complaining about the field’s condition.
Other projects that were not completed that were once promised to be ready for the World Cup include airport terminals in Campinas and Fortaleza, upgrades to three of Brazil’s ports, and bus stations throughout the country. While there are many projects that did not get finished, Brazil did complete upgrades to Sao Paolo’s airport and the Belo Horizonte central rapid bus system. It seems like in the weeks leading up to recent sporting events including the Olympics and the previous World Cup much of the talk is about cost overruns and uncompleted projects. However once the first game kicks off, the focus will turn to what happens on the field. Click here to see a photo gallery of the 12 World Cup stadiums, including the Estadio do Maracana that will host the final. FIFA has also set up 12 Fan Fest areas in the host cities for visitors without tickets to watch the games and interact with other fans. Hopefully the World Cup will be a great success and give Brazil momentum heading into the 2016 Olympics which will be held in Rio De Janeiro.
Sources: Chicago Tribune, IB Times
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