Brazil's major headache for World Cup

Security staff during a drill in the Mario Filho “Maracana” stadium of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on June 7, 2013, where the first match of the FIFA Confederations Cup between Italy and Mexico will take place next June 16. (AFP/Getty Images)

Inadequate infrastructure, particularly in air transport, threatens football-mad Brazil’s hopes of dazzling the world with the best-organised World Cup ever 12 months from now.

Expectations are high. It will be the first World Cup hosted by the South American powerhouse since 1950, when the country’s defeat to Uruguay in the final at Rio’s iconic Maracana stadium is still considered a traumatic national humiliation.

Brazilians may not have invented football but they have elevated it to an art and for many fans, hosting both the Confederations Cup, which kicks off on Saturday, and next year’s World Cup promises an unparalleled, samba-driven fiesta.

But tempering the general optimism as eight countries — Brazil, Spain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Tahiti and Uruguay — compete in the June 15-30 Confederations Cup is concern about lingering logistical woes.

Some 355,000 Brazilians and foreign tourists are expected for the tournament, which is seen as a dress rehearsal for next year’s mega-event.

But organisers have been struggling to complete the construction or renovation of the six host arenas, with work plagued by repeated delays due to strikes, roof collapses and other problems.

Four of the stadiums were delivered to football’s world governing body FIFA behind schedule and in the northeastern city of Salvador last month “a human error” caused part of the roof of the brand new Arena Fonte Nova to collapse following heavy rains.

Air transport is a main headache

In a vast country bigger than the continental United States, transport is a huge challenge.

Traffic jams can stretch up to 200 kilometers (124 miles) in major cities, roads are often in a sorry state, while airports are congested and there is virtually no passenger train service.

Air transport has increased more than 120 percent over the past decade, on the back of rising disposable income but airport capacity has been overwhelmed.

The country’s notoriously congested airports now have to cope with an influx of three million Brazilian tourists and 500,000 foreigners who will flock to the 12 host cities during the World Cup.

Some airports have been privatized and others have slowly been upgraded.

But critics say investment in infrastructure has been insufficient.

“Without good planning, good regulation and investment incentives, it (the World Cup) is going to be a disaster,” Gesner de Oliveira, an infrastructure expert at the private Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) business school in Sao Paulo, warned.

Brazil spends roughly two percent of its gross domestic product on infrastructure compared with more than seven percent by China and five percent by Chile, he noted.

Nevertheless, Oliveira believes emerging Brazil “can make a great leap forward and rise to the occasion by staging a decent World Cup in terms of infrastructure.”

Just boosting the capacity of airports will not be enough, however, “if they cannot operate satisfactorily, if you have endless queues, delays in luggage handling,” sports minister Aldo Rebelo conceded recently.

Security will be another major worry in a country of 194 million, where 40,000 homicides are recorded annually, according to the private Map of Violence study based on official statistics.

High levels of violence are reported in the 12 host cities, although security in Rio has been considerably improved since 2008 when security forces began wresting control of area shantytowns from drug gangs.

How to make the best use of the massive investments

While FIFA is banking on $4 billion in revenue from the World Cup, including 60 percent from television broadcasting rights, the Brazilian government is earmarking $15 billion in public investments for the event.

A joint study by consulting firm Ernst and Young and FGV says these investments mean that $70 billion are being pumped into the national economy.

“Brazil’s biggest challenge is not building stadiums, metros, airports or telecommunications, but rather how to make the best use of these investments,” Pedro Trengrouse, the United Nations official monitoring the World Cup, told AFP.

“Brazil is hosting the World Cup because it can foot the bill. And its objective is to create joy, enhance the country’s image” with huge festivals everywhere, he added.