Rio para não chorar

viomundo.com.br photo: Girl beaten by Military Police in Porto Alegre

As if on cue, the Military Police in Porto Alegre showed us the extent to which the World Cup mascot will be protected. The obscene and absurd images nicely encapsulate what is going on to rip public money from the, er, public, and give it to multi-national corporations. After “Safado” was deflated by protesters, the Really Very Extraordinary Secretary for the World Cup in Rio Grande do Sul was most concerned that FIFA would give him a new Tatu-Bola. .

viomundo.com.br photo: Military Police guard a plastic armadillo!?!?

The details of what happened in the center of Porto Alegre (formerly known as the home of the World Social Forum, Participatory Budgeting, etc.) are a repeat of what we have seen all over the world. Peaceful protest by righteously indignant youths met by overwhelming police force that results in reporters being beaten and thrown in jail, cameras and cell phones broken, and unarmed people demanding their civil rights perrper sprayed, tazed, rubber bulleted, and bashed in the face by mindless thugs in service of private capital. Three days later the President went to Rio Grande do Sul to vote. The mayor was re-elected.

Also on cue was the Brazilian Professional Football Players' Union, who rightly pointed out the health risk of playing matches at 1pm on the bloody Equator! FIFA, of course, said that they consulted their medical committee which likely consisted of a Tatu-bola, Henry Kissinger, Jack Kevorkian, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. In Brazil, lawyers are also called doctors, so perhaps there was some real confusion for FIFA. The best thing about the new stadiums is the air-conditioning in the VIP boxes. So cool, so quiet. Ooh, snacks!

Thouands form a human chain around the Maracanã. Gustavo Mehl photo. 

To resist some of this profanity, Marcelo Freixo brought together thousands of people on Saturday to form a human ring around the Maracanã. As Erick Omena and I were debating on Radio Nacional last Friday, the destruction of the Maracanã is a crime against culture, architecture, history, memory and football itself. Those who approve of the reform tend to think that “global tendencies” are always good, don’t look past the discourse of plenty and progress, and want to blindly follow a path of infinite consumption as a way to complete citizenship. Enjoy the freefall  into an antiseptic nightmare.  The full program is below:

Freixo, a heroic figure in the current political scene in Rio de Janeiro, finished second in the municipal elections but with more than 28% of the vote. This is a huge victory and bodes very well for the insertion of social justice into the blithering diatribes of the incumbent. Paes ran with Goveror Deputy Dawg Cabral to Brasilia this morning to kiss the hand of the President and to thank her for her support in getting him re-elected. The first campaign video that Lula did was for Paes and his dominance in the militia-controlled sections of Rio was complete. Given all this, plus his insane financial advantage and the inherent conservatism of Carioca society, Freixo's 28% is indeed a huge milestone. Tatu-bola para a frente!

Pathetically and predictably, the hegemonic mega-event coalition was consolidated on Friday with the re-installment of Carlos Nuzman as head of the Brasilian Olympic Committee. Now at the helm for more than two decades, Nuzman was unopposed in the “election” and received the vote of 29 or 30 federations. The only vote against? The Brazilian Ice Sports Federation. You could say that the Federation has been frozen out.

To demonstrate the degree of depravity and old-school Latin American Coronelismo going on at the COB, check out this excellent piece of reporting by ESPN – Brasil. The piece opens by showing COB functionaries breaking into the Ice Federation headquarters to steal documents. The way the funding for sports federations works is that the Federal Government, via the Ministry of Sports, sends money to the COB which then distributes money to the federations. To get the money a federation president has to be on Nuzman’s good side and use the COB accountants at a cost of R$4000 per month. If you cross Nuzman, the money gets cut and the COB invades your headquarters. When asked about this by ESPN, the Minister of Sport said he could do nothing. Delightful.

The “election” of Nuzman to another term as head of the COB also means that he will keep his post as President of Rio 2016. The re-election of Paes has probably calmed the nerves of the IOC and FIFA. Invariably, the scenes of Porto Alegre will be repeated throughout Brazil as public space is privatized, social services are cut and citizens’ rights are trampled so that more gigantic Tatu-bolas driking Coke can be thrown up in the 12 host cities. Please vote on the name for the Mascot or send me your suggestions and I'll put them on the voting list. 

Here’s a longer video of the Abraço no Maracanã. Congratulations to all who participated!

The Olympic Flag is made of Korean Silk

There are so many interesting things about the Olympic Flag that I am bursting with excitement to report that I gave away the punch line in the title. I was astounded that after so many years of researching the Olympic Games that something so elementary, so symbolic could have escaped my attention. Korean silk!!!! Who knew?

As the devoted readers of Hunting White Elephants will no doubt have heard, the London Games are over, save for the three weeks of Paralympics that receive almost no media attention whatsoever. The missile batteries might be coming down off the roofs and tourists will start heading back to London. The party cost British taxpayers more than 11 billion pounds, around 5x over the original budget. Eduardo Paes and the Rio team have learned that lesson well, now refusing to talk about the budget beyond what was presented in the Bid Books in 2009.

We do know that the original budget underwritten by Lula was R$31 billion. Can we go 5x over? Maybe. Part of the problem is identifying what is Olympic and what is World Cup, what is ordinary investment and what is related to the megas. When transportation systems are conveniently directed to serve the Olympics, they are part of the Games project. When they are part of the budget, they are not. Any and all increases in the Gross Product of Rio are attributed to the Games, any increase in water pollution is not. When projects make the numbers tick in the right direction for marketing, yeah Rio 2016! There are no other numbers.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. There is no evidence to suggest that mega-events bring a public return on public investment. To the contrary, this is a regime of public risk for private profit that will use the militarization of urban space to control local populations and extract as much value from the city in the shortest timeframe possible before moving Istanbul for 2020.

Protest brining the 'evicitions trophy' to the mayor

The press conference yesterday was an interesting look into the way the 2016 Olympics will be run. As we received media credentials, we signed up to ask questions only to be informed later that only 5 questions would be allowed because the Governor, Mayor and Snoozman were tired after their flight from London. The questions were typical of the Brazilian media: innocuous, staged, soporific, irresponsible and stupid. The SporTV reporter asked the mayor to explain the emotion of brining the Olympic flag back to Rio. The Globo reporter asked if the mayor was going to bring the actual flag around the city or if they were going to use a replica. This gave him the chance to bring up the medal winning boxers as “security”, highlight the honor guard of the Guarda Municipal (wearing pith helmets), and to suggest that if the Olympic flag needed more security he “would have Cabral call in BOPE.”

The only decent question came from the BAND reporter, who, in response to the stimulation of the protest by the Comitê Popular outside the too-small, low-ceilinged INFAERO conference room (itself a testament to the poverty of investment in public infrastructure) asked about forced removals and the fate of the Vila Autódromo. This clearly irritated the mayor who leaped to his feet, protesting any suggestion that there had been at any time anything but democratic, open discussion with all of the communities removed for Rio’s Olympic project.

Conflating various key phrases of Paes, he said “there have been hundreds of people removed along the trajectory of the Transcarioca in the Zona Norte, middle class people, and no social activists were making a fuss about that because we did things democratically [HWE: removing individual houses is easier than removing whole communities]. We’ve bought land for the people of the Vila Autodromo [HWE: a project that the government had to go back on because the land belonged to one of Paes’ major campaign donors] and everyone is going to live in a nice apartment [HWE: whether or not they want to] only 500 meters from where they are now [HWE: this project is not going to happen]. No one is going to be removed violently [HWE: ask the people in Metrô, Restinga, Vila Harmonia, Recreio II about that!]. Once we deal with this situation we’ll see these political agitators disappear like they always do [HWE: taking a pot shot at his opposition in the coming elections].”

He added, “We need to move on from people resisting progress and cursing the government. This should be a thing of the past.” The elimination of alternative voices in the Olympic Era was well documented in London, another lesson learned. Of course, none of this addresses the wisdom or necessity of projects in and of themselves; project planned by a public relations firm in conjuntion with their governmental, meida and corporate bedfellows. A philandering foursome that goes alem do pornográfico.

There were some other tendencies on display that should be taken note of by journalists and researchers. In the blowing, normative discourses of Cabral, Snoozeman and Paes, there is a continual conflation of two presidents, Dilma and Lula. “O presidente” is Lula, “a presidenta” is Dilma, as if they were both governing at the same time. Lula’s role in bringing the Olympics is never far from the lips of those who drank so profusely from his overflowing cup of charming good-ol-boyism.

This is a closed circle of self-referential and self-interested parties where no contrary or alternative hymns will be sung. Thus, the World Cup slogan, Juntos num só ritmo, can be understood to refer to the larger political project of the Olympics as well as the elimination of alternatives. The Olympics take this to the next level.

On a positive note, after the press conference as the medalists put on display by the government were carrying their own bags to be stuck into a van (instead of the limousine escort afforded their lordships), the protestors from the Comitê Popular engaged them in conversation. All of them were adamant about their support for an Olympics without forced removals and for the production of peaceful and socially inclusive Games.

Going, going, nearly gone

There have been some big shakeups in the world of Brazilian football and more are about to happen. Today, or yesterday, it doesn’t matter, Ricardo Texeira, Mr. Jowls, Sickly Ricky, resigned from his post on the FIFA executive council. FIFA says they want an “immediate replacement”, ostensibly before anyone can notice that R.T. will be replaced with someone just like him, only healthier.

Grondona, a virile physical specimen

Nice medal, but who ate all the pies?

CONMEBOL, the South American football confederation, has three members on the FIFA executive committee. The remaining two are old school gangsters – Nicolás Leoz, a Paraguayan strongman, and Julio Grondona an Argentine snake in the grass. Both have been in power since the 19^th century and are long overdue for one way tickets to Miami via Devil's Island. That nothing ever changes in South American football while the quality of play is detonated by the export of the best talent to Europe should concern the continent’s sporting press. The only voices in the shiny, happy wilderness of increased consumer consumption continue to come from the good lads at ESPN Brasil. I keep wondering how much longer it will take for ESPN’s parent company, Disney/ABC, to figure out that their mouse ears are being continually tweaked by Júlio Cruz and Juca Kufuri.

On a lighter note, João Havelange has been hospitalized with what appears to be a serious infection. Incredibly, unbelievably, yet predictably, I received an email yesterday citing this criminal mastermind for the Nobel Peace Prize!!! Havelange’s family fortune came from made millions dealing arms between Belgium and Brazil and then from building bus companies. Havelange coddled dictators and murderers throughout his career always asserting, “I don’t do politics I do sport.” He was cozy with the military regimes in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay and was constantly re-elected to the top spot of FIFA by greasing the palms of Asian and African dictators. Since 1974 he has been pulling the strings at FIFA. Blatter is his creation. Sickly Ricky was his son-in-law.

When the 96 yr old Havelange shuffles off this mortal coil in the next days or weeks, it’s only a matter of time, get ready for a white-washed version of his “grand contribution” to global sport. Nobel Peace Prize, indeed! The man should be tried at the Hague! Nuzman, head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and Rio 2016, went to kneel at his bedside yesterday, like a loyal godson gathering a few more pearls of raspy-throated wisdom. I am going to make myself preemptively sick so that I can pick up the obituaries with something approximating calm.

Was it something they ate? Go get 'em Andrew!!!!!

This may be the physical end of the Havlange-Texeira era but their legacies have created a scoliosis-ridden sporting body that will take the rest of us decades to correct. All it will take to rub the shine off these Teflon-coated gangsters is the release of those Swiss court documents that chronicle the extent and depth of the corruption scandals that these two were involved in.

For those of you that missed it, Romário, the former world player of the year and now state deputy for Rio said that Texeria’s removal from positions of authority at the CBF was akin to “removing a cancer from Brazilian football.” Touché, my good deputy.

Here we go again, de novo

Olympics, Olympics, Olympics. Copa, Copa, Copa. Rio 2016, Brazil 2014, Olimpiada, Brazil 2014, 2014 Brasil, World Cup FIFA,Mundial da FIFA, FIFA, FI-FA-FO-DA, FeeFã, Olympics, Olympics, ParaOlympics. O-limp-ics. Shout it from the rooftops, sing it in a taxi, whisper it while making love because EVERYTHING for now and forever is about the bloody mega-events: economy, politics, city planning [sic], health care, transparency, security[sic], media, and the pqp. But, if you happen to be whispering these sweet nothings into the hairy ears of Carlos Nuzman, Ricardo Teixeira, Jerome Valcke or their lawyers you are subject to criminal proceedings for copyright violation (and bad taste).

The “Law of the Cup” (LdC) emerged from its black box into the light of day this week, irritating everyone except the ruling party panderers. There are a number of items that are particularly noxious:

Chapter 2, Section 1 of the LdC deals with the protection and exploration of commercial rights for the Confederations’ and World Cup. The National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) is the target of the law as their existing statutes have to be bent over to FeeFã's whispering will.

In Article 5.1.1, the INPI will not require that FeeFã prove that a given item is associated with their events. This will allow just about any visual or textual reference to come under the aegis of copyright protection statutes, thereby eliminating the possibility of non-associated businesses and vendors to make money.  Thus, using the “Brazil 2014” in any context could be considered a violation. Imagine a tourist agency’s ad: “Come to Brazil in 2014”. Illegal. Rio Copa, illegal.  In article 10 of the same section,  FeeFã  will not have to pay any money to INPI regarding the processing of claims they make.

Section 2 dealing with “areas of restricted commerce and access routes” is the shortest and perhaps most worrying. All levels of Brazilian government will assure that FIFA is granted the exclusive right to sell everything in the “official event locations, their immediacies, and in the principal access routes.” Hmm. Let’s suppose that some lefty anarchist wants to take the Metrô instead of driving to the Maracanã to see a World Cup match. That means that every road leading to all of the Metrô stations in the city becomes a principal access route and that FeeFã could tell the city to police all of those routes for non-official commerce.  What would happen to you if you decided to set up a t-shirt stand? Section 4 details your fate: three months to one year in prison or a fine. This is nothing short of the privatization of public space that is intended to maximize profits for FeeFã and their FeeFiliates.

So far, so bad, but nothing terribly surprising.

One of the elements that got Romário, yes Romário of the 1994 world cup winning side and now a federal deputy, up in a huff was the inclusion of a clause that would allow all levels of government to declare holidays during game days. The Rio de Janeiro state government has already altered the school calendar for 2014 to have the winter break occur during the World Cup. Now, any city can claim a holiday because a football game is going to happen. This is to reduce the inevitable traffic problems because the transportation projects are clearly not going to be finished on time,or as Romário said, "this will put makeup on the problems that we are going to have." More on that later. I personally think it’s great and that these special holidays will really generate some serious cross-cultural understanding. For example, the fine, yet perhaps sheltered, citizens of Cuiabá will have a holiday to celebrate the scintillating match between Ukraine and Cameroon, giving everyone a full day to find these places on a map. Jamaica x South Korea in Natal…feriado!  Paraguay x Norway in Salvador…feriado! All of the Brazil games...5 national holidays in one month! Brilliant!

The freebies of the LdC are extensive. We know that the stadiums are all built with public money and that they get handed over to FeeFã for months. But FeeFã will also get free secutiry, health and medical services (read: termas), vigilância sanitaria (whatever that is), and will also slide through customs and immigration.

Article 8 describes in the most minimal details the development of a separate court system to process FIFA’s legal needs. Similar to the military tribunals in Guantanamo or Iraq, these will process and judge cases specifically related to FeeFã’s occupation of the country.

Chapter Three, Article 26, XI gives possible good news for those who decide to leave your conscience at home, overcome the global financial downturn and spend ten thousand dollars on a two week trip: “spectators who posses tickets…and individuals who can demonstrate official involvement with the events…considering a valid passport sufficient for the visa” will “have a visa issued without any restriction to nationality, race or creed.” This could mean that some visa fees will be waved, or not, I’m not sure and neither is anyone else.

Enough about the LdC. It’s more or less what we expected and somewhat less than FeeFã wanted. Next up, the strikes, increases in costs, and organizational nightmares for the Oh-limp-ics.

Laws, Speculation, Eminent Domain, Stadia

The scenario – in Brazil it typically takes about 38 months for a government-funded project to go from approval to payment for services. The bureaucratic hurdles to implementing infrastructure projects and social programs are so formidable that even the gods of Olympus would have to take a few extra running steps to clear them. The three year delay between approval and implementation has the house of FIFA in a fine lather, so Dilma’s left-center government has come up with a solution to the bureaucratic bottleneck: RDC.

The RDC (Regime Diferenciado de Contratações Públicas / Differentiated Regime for Public Contracts) is a fundamental element of the Medida Provisória 527, a Provisional Measure that comes from the Executive branch and requires approval from both houses of the Legislature. The original purpose of MP 527 was to create the Ministry of Civil Aviation, but as it was moving through the halls of Brasilia it picked up the RDC.

The alteration of “normal operating procedures” is a hallmark of mega-events which install states of exception and emergency in the cities and countries where they pass. The time pressures of the event and the contracts signed with Swiss-based NGOs allow for the dribbling of democratic processes and the installation of extra-legal authorities that disappear after the events, leaving no one accountable for the wreckage and debt left behind. Greece is burning in large part because of the huge debt spending for the 2004 Olympics, but no one points the finger at the IOC, the government, or the sponsors of the event. No money left in the public coffers? Austerity for the people. 

There are conflicting needs expressed in the RDC and MP 527. Brazil is woefully late and staggeringly over budget in the production of facilities for the 2014 World Cup. There is a need to have a mechanism that lowers, or at least controls, the costs of stadium and infrastructure projects at the same time that the contracting and payment process can be accelerated. There is also a need for greater transparency in the bidding and contracting processes. The problem with "acceleration" or "differentiation" is that it opens the possibility for even more corruption than usual. The main concern of those opposed to the RDC is that it will make secret the price of the projects until after the projects are awarded. This information will be “secret and will only be available to internal and external organs of fiscal control”. Basically, this means that we will never be able to find out how much projects cost.

Worse, these budgets can be kept from public scrutiny forever if they are considered to be relevant for “state security”.

On the bright side, it appears that the “super-powers” of FIFA and the IOC which would have allowed them to demand significant modifications to projects after the contracting process, potentially increasing their cost. Also on the side of transparency and democracy was the inclusion of Federal financial control organs in the list of agencies that could have access to the budgets: Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), Controladoria-Geral da União (CGU) and Ministério Público (MP).

The Senate should vote on MP 527 this week and there may be some alterations to the final version, so more on that soon. The extreme content of MP 527 has generated significant debate about the role of transparency for mega-event installation. This is a good and necessary debate, but again, one that should have begun back in 2007 when Brazil was first handed the task of preparing for the 2014 World Cup.

See, we're sending those poor people to the puta que pariu!

In Rio, the real-estate speculation boom continues apace. This week, the city announced the winner of the Porto Olímpico contest, a massive re-urbanization prject that will bring millions of square meters of office space and upper middle class residences to the Zona Portuaria. Of course there are the normal references to the “inspiration of Barcelona” and the role of the Olympics in revitalizing the port area. Left out of the celebrations are the reports that many of the Zona Portuaria's traditional tenants and residents are being forced out to make way for the “revitalization”.

One of the most egregious examples of the approach the city is taking in their maniacal desire to re-make space and culture is the expulsion of the Samba schools that have traditionally occupied the region. Twelve schools will have 30 days to leave the area which the Porto Olímpico project will occupy. Out with the old and traditional, in with the new and consumerist. In addition to the samba schools, families and small businesses that occupy the old Federal Railway Depository (RFF) will also have to find somewhere else to go. This is all directed by CDURP, the private enterprise that is responsible for the “re-urbanization” of the Zona Portuaria with R$ 7.6 billion in stimulus from the Caixa Econômica (in addition to several billion more from the FGST, a public workers pension fund). That is to say, uma porrada de dinheiro público para lucros privados.

Speculation and "Re-vitalization", the winning project for the Porto Olimpico

To round off the post, there is a report in today’s Valor Econômico (1.7.11, A7) about the financing of São Paulo’s World Cup stadium, the Itaquerão. In addition to the low-interest R$400 million loan from BNDES, Corinthians (Lula’s team) will receive hundreds of millions from the city as well as a R$30 million exemption from ISS (Taxes for Services Provided). The cost of the stadium, which a few weeks ago was R$700 million, has jumped to R$ 1,07 billion. The city is only guaranteeing financing if the Itaquerão manages to attract the opening game of the cup, further politicizing the already highly charged relations between the CBF and the host cities.

Problems Continue

Problems continue in Brazil's mega-event world.

Stadia: Yesterday’s edition of Veja, a conservative news weekly, had as its cover a photo of the Maracanã  with the headline – "At the current pace, the Maracanã  will reopen 24 years late". The story behind the front page was not encouraging. None of the 12 Brazilian stadium projects underway are at the same stage of development as were the stadiums in South Africa. Not that it matters. According to Peter Alegi, a top SA 2010 researcher, only one of the ten 2010 WC stadiums is currently in use and the 50,000 capacity Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace drew an impressive 655 fans for a recent league match.

Corruption: The delays and confusion and lack-of-planning and stupidity and incompetence and outright theft and lack of professionalism in the planning for the 2014 World Cup has now been called out by Brazil’s biggest media outlets. This very same media have had their hands forced into a critical posture but never take the next step to calling for a total reorganization of Brazilian football. The CBF is one of the most corrupt and closed institutions in the world. It’s president Ricardo Teixeira was named as one of the greedy gophers selling his votes to Qatar. His father-in-law, João Havelange was also named in the recent corruption scandal.

Transportation: The transportation lines being crammed through Brazilian cities to attend to the short-term demands of mega-events will dislocate millions of people without attending to the real demands of Brazilian metropolitan areas.  The lack of planning in transportation was reported by Agencia Brasil the other day and comes as no surprise. In the above mentioned Veja article, one of the highlights was that the Brazilian government has already declared that 9 of the 12 airport projects will not be ready for the World Cup or Olympics. The Rio Metro saga is playing out poorly as no one can figure out where the new line 4 is going to go.

Forced Evicitions: Last week the UN was in town visiting the thousands of homes that have been partially or totally destroyed by the Rio city government to make way for these ill considered transportation lines. It’s a sad and tragic comedy of Olympian proportions. The hubris and callousness of the Rio city and state government knows no bounds.  According to the Estado do São Paulo newspaper the expectation is that at least 65 thousand Brazilians will lose their homes. The reality is that tens of millions more will be directly and indirectly affected. (Click here for a great story by Tom Phillips).

Transparency: Zero. The Rio 2016 Organizing Committee released the contract that the city signed with the Olympic Committee – 19 months after it was signed. The Brazilian chefão, Carlos Nuzman said that only newspapers would have access to the contract and that the general public would not be able to access what their democratically elected leaders have agreed to do with their money.  The laughable websites www.transparenciaolimpica.com.br and www.cidadeolimpica.com.br continue to function as smokescreens for the funneling of public money into private hands.

Privitization: nota dez. Henrique Mirelles, head of the APO (Public Olympic Authority) and former head of Brazil’s central Bank, has long used coded words to guide his public commentary. His latest was that the Olympics will usher in a new form of public governance.

For the first time I have begun to think that Brazil will not be able to pull these projects together in time for the World Cup. The lack of competency and organization and oversight is staggering and of continental proportions. There are so many moving pieces that have gone unattended for so long that it might be too late to create a functioning mechanism. The government should take over all World Cup operations now, nationalizing the CBF and the World Cup profits. The World Cup was awarded to Brazil in 2007, almost nothing has happened since then. The delays and disorganization serve to increase the cost of everything while necessitating a financial infusion from the state that will invariably be turned into private profit. It is important to remember that the WORKERS’ PARTY (PT) of LULA is behind these developments. Where mega-events are concerned, there is rarely any good news, just talking heads, hollow discourse, and momentary distractions from an increasingly harsh reality. 

Yeah, it's absurd. E dai?

Someone in the government finally noticed that stadiums in Brasilia, Manaus, Natal, and Cuiabahaha are going to have no post-World Cup uses and will be a perpetual drain on state coffers until they are demolished. It's only R$2 billion for construction and about R$24 million a year to keep them standing. No biggie. Oh, but then let's throw in Fortaleza and Recife, just because no one will be able to afford R$60 tickets and we have a half-dozen stadiums with no post-Cup usage. Sinto como um papagaio, sempre falando a mesma coisa.

In Rio, OGlobo was kind enough to point out the other day that not only will the Maracanã be closed through the end of 2012, but will likely have highly restricted use until after the 2016 Olympics. Why? Because the state will have to give the stadium over to FIFA through the end of the World Cup and then to the IOC through the end of the Olympics. Last night Fluminense played in Volta Redonda, two and a half hours away. Flamengo is charging R$50 for bleacher seats in the Fechadão. In Minas Gerais, the closing of the Minerão is forcing Galo and cruzeiro to play 70-100 km from Belo Horizonte, with predicatable declines in attendance. Though the phrase doesn't really translate into Portuguese, Brazilians are going to find out what it's like to be someone's bitch (with apologies to the biatches out there).

Fortunately there's a small movement afoot to restore some pride. Marcos Alvito of the History Department at UFF is organizing a meeting to restore some respect. It will occur on October 10 at the Bar Dezoito, across from Gate 18 at the Maracanã. More information is available here: http://respeitamofutebol.wordpress.com

In my last post, I noted that the Medidas Provisorias that created the APO and BRASIL 2016 expired because the Senate did not vote on them in time. A new version of the MP rolled off the presses this week, #503. This MP creates anew the APO, which will be the umbrella organization for all Olympic projects. This parallel government will have tremendous power and around R$30 billion to play with. The head of the APO will be the current Secretary of Sport, Orlando Silva, who appointed the indicted head of the PAN 2007, Ricardo Lyser to had the private company BRASIL 2016. O papagaio falou de novo?

In other Olympic news, the Tribunal das Contas da União has fired some shots across Nuzman's bow, asking for an accounting of the approximately R$100 million of public funds that went into the Rio 2016 bidding process.

The Olympic Shell Game (O jogo do bicho olímpico)

As I have mentioned in numerous posts and interviews, part of the process of hosting a mega-event is the restructuring of space and re-presenting culture in order to accelerate flows of capital, goods, information, and people. “Inefficiencies” are structured out of the city, “strategic areas” are “regenerated”, and “urban legacies” left behind. City, state, and national governments promise massive urban and social interventions, signing contracts with international sporting federations that take precedence over social contracts with the local population, even though it is the latter group that is footing the bill. The current model of mega-event production is broken. The World Cup and Olympics are guaranteed to leave behind sporting, tourist, and urban infrastructures that have little or no post-event utility, do not attend to the basic needs and priorities of locals, and waste a singular opportunity to shape urban space and culture in a way that will create a more just and livable society. We are in need of Olympic-lessness, not events that are ever bigger and more transformative.

Brazil 2014 and Brazil 2016 will be corrupt, non-transparent mega-events that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, exacerbate existing socio-economic divides, and leave behind acontextual, redundant, and under-used sporting, tourist, and urban infrastructures. Among the many reasons for this chronicle of a failure foretold is the fact that Brazil receives only 5 million tourist visits a year. Poland receives 15 million. Bulgaria receives 5.2 million. Bulgaria! The obvious solution is to move Brazil closer to North America and Europe, eliminate the tourist visa, or not spend one billion reales in stimulus to construct hotels for which there will be no post-event demand. With that kind of money you could fly in another million tourists. The results from Athens 2004 and South Africa 2010 should be warning enough. Alas, in Brazil the federal government has made it ever easier to build on a massive scale while creating complex legal structures to ensure the total opacity of the process.

In May, President Lula signed into law Provisional Measure 488/2010, giving birth to Empresa Brasileira de Legado Esportivo S.A. - BRASIL 2016 (The Brazilian Sport Legacy Company Ltd. – BRASIL 2016). On the same day, he signed Provisional Measure 489/2010, creating the Autoridade Pública Olímpica – APO (Public Olympic Authority). These two institutions will be directed by the Conselho Público Olímpico (Public Olympic Council -CPO). These new institutions will use the legal measures outlined in the Olympic Act (Lei nº 12.035/2009) along with their exceptional powers to “transform” Rio de Janeiro into an Olympic City. How will this work?

The federal government will pass R$29 billion to the CPO, comprised of the president of the republic, the governor and mayor of Rio de Janeiro “or their representatives”. The CPO can decide whether or not to extend the life spans of the APO and BRASIL 2016 past their 12/31/18 death date (kind of like the mutants in Bladerunner). The CPO will pass the money along to BRASIL 2016, which will then pass it along to the APO, which will then pass it along to contractors that do not have to go through a public bidding process in order to receive contracts with public money. Neither BRASIL 2016 or the APO will be required to hire their employees through the normal legal channels. All goods imported for the Olympic and World Cup projects are exempt from tariff duties (especially aggravating when it will cost me R$275 to liberate my birthday package from the mail room). By the time a contractor starts to work on a project, the money will have passed through three inter-connected yet independent organizations, none of which will have non-governmental auditors. Just to get the APO up and running will cost R$94,8 million. In Brazil, money does actually grow on trees but you have to cut them down to get it.

The APO is responsible for the creation and delivery of the Caderno de Encargos Olímpicos (CAPO – Olympic Projects) which the agency alone defines. These projects are highly varied, and in many cases assume the responsibilities normally undertaken by state agencies. The APO is not required to have liaisons with any state agencies, becoming a form of urban governance unto itself. This ensures that the APO will become the agency that is planning the city for the next generations. Will they hire urban planners? Will the total autonomy from democratic process facilitate the development of strong community relations? Will the lack of accountability in awarding contracts ensure a more transparent expenditure of public funds? Once BRASIL 2016 and the APO expire, to what government agency will citizens be able to turn to register complaints or search for answers? How many of the people who were in charge of the massively over budget, non-transparent 2007 Pan American Games will be directing these agencies? How will these extraordinary powers be used as we get ever closer to opening ceremonies? Will Ricardo Teixeira, president of both the CBF (Brazilian Football Federation) and the LOC (Local Organizing Committee) ensure that public money does not go into his private organization? Will Carlos Nuzman, president of the COB (Brasilian Olympic Committee) and Rio 2016 (which has an uncertain yet continuing role in all this) ensure that his business relationships are not going to benefit from the opacity of the Olympic Structure? Will the government site dedicated to monitoring Olympic Projects (http://www.transparenciaolimpica.com.br/ ) ever have information that is worth looking at?

Perhaps in anticipation of the answers to these questions, the Ministry of Sport is planning on spending between R$15-R$22 million per year to improve its image.

The deployment of provisional measures in addition to the alteration (or suspension) of national, state, and city laws in order to “prepare” Brazil to host sports mega-events highlights the radical nature of these events.

The IOC and FIFA make demands, Brazil bends over backwards to meet them. The clock is running and badly needed investments in health, education, and public transportation get bypassed for new priorities.  The government, in fealty to slick criminals, makes new laws, grants exemptions, and creates a parallel government that will take public money, have little or no accountability (either financial or democratic), and then once the games have passed, will simply disappear. As I mention in my article in the Journal of Latin American Geography, this is similar to what happened during the USAmerican invasion of Iraq with the establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The CPA went in after a total “restructuring” (Shock and Awe), changed all of the laws and then evaporated. Here, the Shock and Awe comes in a different, somewhat less violent form, but the idea is the same: restructure space and culture for the maximization of profit.