What are happening in Brazil? Why?

[ThirdWorld]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyejpPmZXn0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsBff36o-Nk

 

[gooner]

It's more to do with promises being broke about how the funding of building new stadiums for the World Cup is being done. I think it was supposed to be only 10% public funded but it has been shown to be a lot more than that with the Brazillian people fitting the bill. They feel it has impacted on their public life and hindered development of hospitals and so on. This being the case I agree with the protests. No matter how big and prestigious a World Cup and Olympics is, the needs of everyday life for the people of your country should be of greater importance for your government than any of these sporting events. I heard one of the stadiums is in a city where there isn't a team in the top two flights of Brazilian football. Where's the legacy after this?

 

[DirtyWorks]

As a follow-up, here's a good article on some of general costs/profits behind hosting a World Cup.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2013/06/28/fifa-president-sepp-blatter-pledges-100m-to-brazil/2474275/

The summary, the government spend thousands of millions of Reals and get maybe 10% back to be used exclusively for the promotion of football.

It's only after the unrest could not be quieted the $100 million Real are offered by Blatter. Blatter has $100 million Real to offer, just imagine what he is keeping!

This is the essence of the UCI's push to globalize cycling. Get the government to finance bringing the WorldTour to your area.

 

[Christian]

I recently saw an interesting feature on TV, they renovated the Maracana stadium, formerly temple of the people and now it has become one of these non-descript corporate arenas with plenty of box seats and ticket prices that many people can't afford.

I am amazed when I see these protests, I interprete them as people wanting more equality and social justice, rather than billions being poured into these giant events for the profit of corporations.

Brazil is such a fascinating country, I hope I can visit it one day.

 

[gooner]

Blatter started this policy of alternating hosting the tournament from continent to continent after Germany got it in 2006. This has since been abandoned after the difficulties first in South Africa but especially now in Brazil. I was reading a recent interview with Jerome Valcke with FIFA, who is overseeing the progress of Brazil's stadium building and he gave the impression that they were far from happy on certain aspects of what he has seen so far. It's obvious they regret going there and Blatter's gesture of the 100m is to try and appease the Brazillian people and to quell further protests which I think will inevitably happen again next year. Remember Brazil didn't even have any other competing bid because of this policy that Blatter introduced. And there are already making plans to go back to South America again I see. Julio Grondona just said FIFA want Uruguay and Argentina to co-host the event in 2030. Plenty of time to get their planning and funding in order and not have the disruption we see in the Brazilian build up to it like we have now.

Regarding now, the Brazillian people have every right to fell this angry due to the broken promises that were made in all this. It's obviously affecting their standards of the living and this is of a lot more importance than any sporting event irrespective of it's size.