The World Cup Football 2014 @ Brazil: Protests Galore

 

Brazil, the largest Lusophone nation, venue for two world’s biggest extravaganza, FIFA Cup in 2014 and Summer Olympics in 2016 is set to rule the sports roster for the next two years. With the FIFA cup due in less than 2 months, there has been a surge in enthusiasm about the world football festival. The beach country Brazil is undoubtedly the most favoured place on earth this June. Brazil is popular on the world map for the fun, frolic, samba dance, beautiful women and above all football which is its heart and soul. The unprecedented celebrations will kick starts in Sao Paulo when Brazil takes on Croatia on June 12^th. 

 

When Brazil won the bid for conducting Olympics and World cup, the historical decision of shifting the mega sporting events to an emerging nation has been lauded internationally.  But the ground situation in the country suggests otherwise. Brazil has been going through a trail of inglorious melancholy for more than one year due to pitched protests. Much to the chagrin of Brazilians who complain of massive corruption, poor infrastructure and sub standard education, the venues are not ready for the World Cup. Last year as a rehearsal for the World Cup when Confederation Cup was held in Brazil, the event was meted out with protests and military had to be called to take stock of the situation. Insiders say that the situation would be no different for the main event as agitators are planning 64 protests targeting the 64 games scheduled as a part of World Cup.

People have become restive as the problems have been compounded ever since Brazil won the bid for Olympics. Fares of public transport have been hiked, favelas (slums) dwellers were evicted and almost $22.8 billion invested for building various facilities and necessary infrastructure for the games across 12 different cities in Brazil. Government planned for ambitious infrastructure and stadia as found it as right time for developing the country. But these mega events have divided the country into two: the one whose lives were hard hit by the corruption and burgeoning dislocations and the other half comprising the upper middle class and rich smitten by the excitement of the world cup and stung by the joyous fervour of football. Country is currently battling between the passions of the football aficionados who are optimistic about the world cup and the displaced favela dwellers, protesting about unmet public demand representing the grievous state of affairs.

In the wake of these raging tensions, a cross section of people believes that football will be the greatest equaliser. In no other part of world can a game of football evoke so much emotion, energy and solidarity as in Brazil. The real magic lies in their national anthem that drives crowds delirious. It can fuel the stadium with enthrallment and thus compatible with both patriotism and protests as well. Even people are heavily relying on the performance of national football team to do the miracle for the country.

After winning the bid for both World cup and Olympics government had  an ambitious $ 400 billion worth plan of overhauling the country infrastructure that includes airports, road and rail transportation. People were overwhelmed as they expected that infrastructure, roads, hospitals and other allied services would also improve. But nearly 25% of those projects stand cancelled, delayed or reduced in scope. Several promises like bullet train linking Rio and Sao Paulo aren’t realised even now. People are vexed of broken and false promises. Instead all the 12 stadia for the world cup are beautifully decked up without any lateral development in the infrastructure. These stadia are like white elephants and after the World cup and games they could no longer use them. Further the grievous water crisis is making things much worse. Government has started rationing water to people. Regular supply of water has been drastically cut for domestic purposes. With reservoirs hitting their lowest ever storage capacity, organisers are having real tough time.

The burden of investments made for renovation and construction to install the state of art facilities within stadia is felt by common man as prices have escalated tremendously. For most of them watching football match is a cultural thing. But with a hike in ticket prices majority are denied them of this pleasure too. Moreover, some of the oldest favelas with rich historical and monumental values are going to be decimated and hence dwellers are strictly opposing any of those moves. World Cup organisers are quick to dismiss this news but till now 65,000 people have lost their homes. Due to the aggressive interventions of police during the evacuation processes, drug gangs started gaining more momentum and cities have become less safe.

About 3.3million tickets for World Cup are up for sale and so far 2.5 million tickets have been sold.  Due to the controversies of slow pace of stadium renovation and construction 50 thousand free tickets are marked for the workers for all first-round matches except the opening game. Even now the preparations for the world cup are far from complete; there are concerns among the officials about players’ dissatisfaction regarding the arrangements. This world cup unlike others has a great deal of compelling results to offer both on and off the field. If Brazil succeeds in organising both the mega events with aplomb, it will go down the history as the first ever South American country to do so. Further it would promote the idea that developing countries too can excel organising world class events, hallmarks of developed nations. The games are going to be another big challenge as the country will experience a major change in leadership with presidential elections due for Oct 2014.  Hope the 30 days of World football fest in Brazil would leave an illustrious footprint in the sporting history. The controversies looming the World Cup seem to be never ending as even the logo has been ridiculed on twitter for looking like face palm.

 

 

 

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