Impunity and Continuity

Legal proceedings that deal with corruption and influence peddling don’t have much staying power in Brazil. 

This week, the former Ministry of Sport Orlando Silva was fortunate enough to have been out of the national and international spotlight for long enough that the President’s Ethics Commission decide to end the investigation into his involvement with a mutli-million dollar corruption scheme. Not having been close to the proceedings, it is impossible to say whether or not there really was a lack of evidence to proceed or if the ethics commission was late for lunch or if this was another example of the press acting as a political bludgeon. Either way, there is no information available on the commission’s website as to the investigation, just some small news pieces saying the Silva is clean. I am not suggesting that the Ethics Commission doesn’t do a fine job of rooting out corruption, just that there appears to be a pattern in Brazil of people getting involved in corruption scandals, losing their jobs, and then being cleared of any wrongdoing. Then, to maintain the status quo, another person just like them, or at least from the same party (in this case the Brazilian Communist Party, PCdoB), is put into power to continue with the same policies.

Take the case of our favorite gout-ridden sycophant, Ricardo Texeira. One year ago, he was riding high in the inner sanctum of FIFA even though he bet on the wrong horse in FIFA’s farcical elections. He had thoroughly dominated Brazilian football for nearly two decades, having ridden to power on the strength of a good marriage. However, he and the ex-father in law had been involved in some shady dealings with FIFA’s now defunct marketing arm and the FIFA president Blatter threatened to divulge documents exposing their (and likely his) involvement. To avoid the gallows before shuffling off the mortal coil, J. Marie Havelange resigned from his honorary post at the IOC and Texeira was forced out of FIFA and the CBF. Where is he now? Living the Latin American millionaire exile life in Florida. Where are the legal proceedings?  None. What has happened with the CBF? Tricky Ricky’s loyalists were stuck into power with the full and obsequious approval of the feudal overlords that control the clubs. What happened with his position on the executive committee at FIFA? Another fat-fingered patsy was put in his place to keep the ball rolling for the “good of the game.” The media naturalizes this process, letting the air out of what should be an expanding balloon of collective, righteous indignation. In the meantime we can be sure that Texeira and the CBF and FIFA are as clean as Byron Moreno’s whistle.

The lesson here is that one can engage in corrupt practices, or be associated closely enough with shady dealings to arouse the sleepy dogs of justice, lose position and power, but keep the money and rest comfortably knowing that the dogs will be thrown some other bones to chew on. Corruption and impunity and forgetting are the pistons that drive the World Cup forward and as long as we keep lubricating the machine with public money and collective passivity, nothing will save us from hurtling over the cliff while 1% of the passengers smugly don their golden parachutes. 

Checking in. Tudo bem? Key-toe'chimo, bri'gado.

Checking back into the craziness of Rio and not too much has changed. The new Minister of Sport, Aldo Rebelo, has been given extraordinary powers and handed the circus over to his cronies and family. Not only did he appoint his personal “people of confidence” , Dilma transferred the APO to the MdoE. That’s a Brazilian acronym to describe the Ministry of Sport, though it could also be MdoE/MoS, just to clarify things and ensure employment for stamp makers. The APO is the acronym for the Autoridade Público Olímpico. This is the body that is ostensibly in control of the R$30 billion budget and the agency that will direct all Olympic-related building projects. All of a sudden, it’s under the new minister. Here we go again, de novo.

FIFA goes along its way, keeping the idiots in charge as long as possible. Can someone please offer Sepp Blatter another job? How about washing dishes in a Brazilian prison? If you haven’t seen Andrew Jenning’s recent stuff, check out www.transparencyinsport.org.  This part might anger Eike Batista, Brazil’s richest, though not most-flatulent man: Ol ‘ Sepp gave the 2014 ticketing contract to his nephew on a no-bid basis. This might rankle the Eikster who said not long ago that if we wanted to get a ticket to the World Cup we would “have to talk to him”.  Let confusion reign.

Where does one begin to explain the differences between Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver? Winter and Summer? Canada and Brazil? South East Atlantic and North West Pacific? Sun People and Cloud People?  How about the airports? Jumpin’ Jaysus. The 40 step escalators at Galeão don’t work. Walking into Vancouver, you passed through a Disney-landesque version of a Rain Forest, which was, despite and because of the Disney factor, impressive and well executed. I thought it was cool, and gave a sense of the natural world one is entering beyond the airport. At Galeão, one also gets an sense of the external, without having to leave the airport.

Vancouver

Rio de Janeiro

It is hard to say which city has a more or less spectacular setting. It’s staggeringly beautiful  In either case, though one could argue that Vancouver has much better access to its environmental amenities. But please, Brazil’s beaches. The one beach I visited was clothing optional, very rocky, and with very cold water. Vancouver, where only the confident wade.

As pequenas barcas de Vancouver. Por que não na Lagoa ou Praca XV - SDU - Urca?

For public transport, is there a better central city area than Vancouver for bus and bike? Water Taxis? They’re as expensive and fancy as a gold tooth, but a great, efficient ride. Very nice, and even in wet, cold weather a good means to get about central Vancouver. I didn’t get to test the inter and intra city ferry system, nor the ferries out to Vancouver Island, but I have a sneaking suspicion that their bike policy compares favorably with that of Barcas S.A.

So, Rio has some serious work to do if it is going to make 50 years progress in 5, again. During my time in Vancouver, Rocinha was occupied by BOPE and MPERJ, OGlobo and Sky TV. Though of course too complex to completely wrap one’s head around, the occupation of Rocinha caused a jump in real-estate prices there and in neighboring São Conrado, an already wealthy enclave. It was widely reported that the marketing bobbleheads that pass for democratically elected leaders were well pleased with the international media attention. There’s no such thing as bad press, right? Not when OGlobo is on your team.

Things are too busy to do more than one or two more posts before the end of the year. One must feed the academic beast some tasty bits from time to time. If you’re just testing the cool waters of geostadia.com for the first time, starting from September 2009 you can find articles related to the Rio Olympics. I enjoy highlighting life’s absurdities and contradictions.  Rio de Janeiro is a seemingly inexhaustible font of inspiration. I enjoy a good circus but don’t want to be a clown. For those who are interested in a sample of my soccer coverage from North Carolina,  click here.  

One question that I would like to pose to those who see (or saw) the Brazilian mega-events through the rose-tinted lenses of dispassionate reason: Why did anyone expect that the negative elements of the Olympics were going to be mitigated in a country and city known for huge socio-economic inequalities, weak democratic institutions, oligarchic business practices, and newly deep pockets?

Finados

Orlando Silva is out of the Ministry of Sport and is under federal investigataion for shuffling cards under the table. Nothing surprising, but the top communist post in Dilma’s government appears to have been less than equitable in his redistribution of state funds. Silva has been replaced by Aldo Rebelo who was involved in some small scandals in the Lula government. Far from squeaky clean, Rebelo’s brother was named in the scandal that brought down Silva. It is unclear if Rebelo has ever kicked or thrown a ball in anger or what his qualifications are to head the government’s primary ministry that will deal with the World Cup and Olympics. More of the same, de novo.

After saying he was going to radically reduce the taxi fleet by some thousands of taxis (and had this put into the Master Plan) the Glorious Crown Prince of Rio has decided to increase it by six thousand. How does he do this? Executive decree. What is an executive decree? A handy tool taken from the box of authoritarianism. What is authoritarianism? The dominant regime in Rio.

Has there ever been a city preparing for mega-events, trying to sell itself to the world as a place of business and leisure that has an much violence and open gunfire in the streets as Rio? Yesterday, in Santa Teresa, there was a gun battle between traficantes and the Military Police after the latter arrested some of the former. The attack on Santa’s UPP is the latest in a series of battles between insurgents and the coalition forces and was probably related to the monthly payment scheme that the two sides had worked out (where the UPP bosses received R$50,000 a month from the traficantes). Last week in Maré, one of Rio’s biggest drug bosses was gunned down in an intense firefight. BOPE has been occupying a part of Maré for a couple of weeks as they prepare to install their headquarters in the region.

The state government appears to be massaging their homicide statistics to show that their public policies are working, but there has been a commensurate increase in “deaths by other causes” as well as disappearances. Between 2007 and April of 2011, 22.533 people disappeared in Rio de Janeiro.

One of the people who should not have disappeared from Rio is State Deputy Marcelo Freixo. Freixo has been under death threat by milicias for years, but recently those threats have escalated and he gone to London at the invitation of Amnesty International to give a series of lectures. Ever sympathetic to the allies of the Crown Prince, who had a sit-down meeting with the milicias about van transport last week, OGlobo mocked Freixo in today’s paper saying that Freixo really isn’t under threat but that his departure was “already scheduled”. From Freixo’s twitter page:

Não recebi qualquer contato de autoridade do gov do Rio para falar sobre as ameaças que recebi. Tratavam como se o problema fosse meu.

I have not received any contact from the Rio government to talk about the threats I have received. They are treating the problem as if it were mine alone.

Naked and repeated death threats to state representatives, open gun battles in some streets, a mayor that governs through executive order, insane traffic problems, rampant real-estate speculation… all made better by the announcement that FIFA is going to offer tickets for the first round of World Cup games between US$20 and US$30. The above link is an interview with FIFA VP Valcke, who is honest in his answers but after reading the interview I’m pretty sure that this is going to be a disaster of a World Cup in terms of mobility. His response to the reporter’s question about a Brazilian fan having to travel more than 10,000km to see the team play was “At least he will be able to say that he traveled.” As I described in an earlier post, the sheer number of air miles is going to overload the Brazilian system completely. My recommendation: stay in the north-east (Recife, Natal, Fortaleza) and paddleboard between the cities.

The Campeonato Brasileiro is headed to a dramatic conclusion. This is the most disputed title in some time with as many as 6 teams with a chance to win it. Happliy, Vasco da Gama is level on points at the top of the table (with Corinthians) four games to play. For the first time in recent memory all four of Rio’s big teams have a chance to win. Vasco’s path is the most difficult with games against Santos, Botafogo, Fluminense, and Flamengo.

Oh the Maracanã.  The contract process for the area surrounding the stadium was just suspended. There are plans to privatize it before 2013 and Eike Batista wants to use his toupee to cover the stands. The final supporting beam of the old roof has been removed and with the implementation of the UPP in Mangueira, the stadium is completely surrounded, as if it had just robbed a  case of beer and was running down the street into a BOPE nest. Hopefully the Policía Federal will have the courage to surround the band of crooks at the CBFdp, but they apparently weren’t able to get much out of Dr. Jowls when he talked to them the other day.

This is the last post for awhile as I will be attending Think Tank 2: Sport Mega-event Impact, Leveraging, and Legacies in Vancouver. The title of my paper for the think tank is The Mega-event city as neo-liberal laboratory. Here’s the abstract:

The production of sports mega-events in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is occurring within the context of profound political, economic, and social change. As Brazil’s economy and political structures have stabilized over the past quarter century, the country has assumed an increasingly important role in global affairs. The dominant trends towards neo-liberalism in the global political-economy are being reproduced within the context of a state structure that has traditionally occupied a central role in the national economy. While transitions to neo-liberalism at the national scale will take time to implement, it is within the urban context that agents of global capital are able to shape most effectively space and social relations to maximize accumulation strategies. In this sense, sports mega-events function as mechanisms for the implementation of neo-liberal modes of governance within urban contexts. This paper will examine the processes through which mega-events in Rio de Janeiro are using the city as an active laboratory for new models of neo-liberal governance that are accelerating the transformation of Brazilian society.

Head of Autoridade Publico Olimpico announced; Nova Fonte Nova underway

In all of the shuffling of positions that occured with the change of government in Brazil, the ever-confused Minister of Sport Orlando Silva couldn't quite figure out where he was going. The CBF wanted him to stay in his current position as did the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB). If you find it shocking that Brazil has a cabinet position filled by a nominal communist, don't be, Mr. Silva is as red as an international finance manager.

The Dilma government decided to maintain Silva in his post at the MoS and has indicated Henruque Meirelles to occupy the top position in the APO. As president Mirelles will make R$22,000 a month and direct a budget of R$30 billion. His qualifications? For the past eight years Meirelles has directed Brazil's Central Bank, winning IstoE's 'Brazilian of the Year' award in 2009. As with nearly all Latin American central bank directors since the Chilean coup in 1973, Meirelles has passed through a conservative USAmerican institution (Harvard) and was the president and c.o.o. of Bank Boston.

There are some conflicts ahead for Mr. Meirelles. The APO is comprised of representaives from three spheres of government, federal, state, and city. The state governor of Rio appears to be on board but the mayor, Eduardo Paes has openly resisted the scope of power of the APO to direct the Olympic building projects. Yesterday he said that he wants "someone smaller" in the position, ostensibly so that Paes himself can have more control over what is going on. This will be an intersting clash of egos. It's unclear to everyone how the APO is going to function, where they will set up shop, who is going to fill the 400 odd positions, and the amount of authority they will wield over urban planning in Rio. We can bet that there will not be much in the way of transparency mechanisms as nearly a year and a half after the seletion of Rio as host of the 2016 Olympics, the website dedicated to Olympic transparency www.transparenciaolimpica.com.br has NO USEFUL INFORMATION.

In my other attempts to gain access to information about the organization of the World Cup and in particular the Maracanã project, I have been met with a vast and stunning silence. I will attempt in the near future to bang on the doors of the SUDERJ archives while continuing to call and email in order to get access to someone or something that will shed light on the inner workings of the World Cup project. The SUDERJ website is good for a laugh.

Which brings me to the World Cup. Four years after the selection of Brazil to host the 2014 tournament there is no didicated website. The CBF website (which only recently has started to work in any browser other than Explorer) has a link that takes one to the FIFA website. On the FIFA site, there are pictures of flaccid, pale middle aged men shaking hands and smiling. There is no public transparency mechanism for the World Cup, and it is increasingly difficult to figure out where money is coming from, where it is going, what the associated infrastructure projects are and who is in charge of anything. The media are as complicit in this obfuscation as as anyone, as I pointed out in my damning critique of IstoE last week.

Another example of the faux-journalism related to these projects came in yesterday's OGlobo. Buried in the middle of the sports section was a full page treatment of the Nova Fonte Nova in Salvador. The stadium was demolished last year over the protests of several residents' groups. There's an excellent article about why it was wrong to demolish the stadium, highlighting its historical function in the city, its multi-purpose utility, and the false and flawed logic employed by the government in order to build something to attend to the sick desires of the FIFA-mafia. Oh well.

The OGlobo piece talks about the public-private-partnership between two of Brazil's largest civil construction firms, OAS and Odebrect, the amount of public financing (R$300 million), the money spent on demolition (R$67 million), but does not mention how much private capital has gone into the project. The stadium will, you will be plesed to hear, "have 31 quiosks, 11 elevators, a panoramic restaurant, a football museum, and space for lectures, shows and business meetings." They might even have a football team play there, though nothing is confirmed. And of course, all of this destruction and construction is actually good for the environment as it will "utilze natural [sic] wind, recycle rain water and sewage, and will (somehow) preserve the environment around the stadium."

The second section of the report was not so glowing as the majority of the urban infrastructure projects planned for Salvador have not lept off the paper and into the lives of residents. The shocking thing about this article was the official statement that Salvador is expecting 70,000 tourists for the World Cup. That's it? 70,000? Surely they get more than that for Carnaval...The planned investments in urban infrastructure, which are needed, amount to R$750 million. But who is directing these projects? Will these projects only attend to the needs of the 70,000 visitors, or to the city at large, creating a more integrated urban transport system? How much will these (so far) phantom projects cost? As a demonstration of the logics behind the projects, the coordenator of the Salvador World Cup said, "It's no good to talk about exact values because the projects will be distributed between various municipal departments and some projects are only related to urban dynamics, and won't be considered part of the World Cup costs?"

Indeed, it is no good to talk about exact values, because these values are going to be hidden from public view. According to the vast majority of press reports, the World Cup and Olympics are responsible for EVERYTHING that will happen in Brazil through 2016. However, when it comes time to talk about the ways in which this will happen logistically or where the money will come from or how those money trails will be followed and accounted for or who will be responsible for delivering the finished product and ensuring that public money is spent in the interest of the public, the answer is always "não dá".

The APO doesn't exist! Rio 2016 and the failure to deliver authority

One of the most confusing and potentially harmful elements of hosting an Olympic Games is the creation of a legal authority created to "deliver" them. In the case of London there is the Olympic Delivery Authority, a non-governmental entity that has tremendous power to direct the budget, contract builders, and assume responsibility for the games. I have suggested in other places that the creation of a temporary, extra-governmental authority that is charged with delivering the Olympics only to disappear soon after, is akin to the installation of an authoritarian regime similar to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in post-invasion Iraq.

On March 14 of 2010, the slippery Minister of Sport gave an extensive explanation about how the Autoridade Público Olímpico (APO – Rio’s version of London’s ODA) would function. Minister Silva said, “We are going to have an executive department and will perhaps create a privatized, public company so that we can have flexibility in terms of contracting. This way, we will be able to pay market salaries to attract high level professionals to participate in the project”( Vamos ter um departamento executivo, talvez constituir uma empresa pública de direito privado, para termos flexibilidade em termos de contração. Com isso, poderemos pagar salários praticados pelo mercado e atrair profissionais de alto nível para participarem do projeto.) Minister Silva was tapped by Lula to head the APO and was put in the position of describing it without, perhaps, knowing exactly how it was going to work.

Things have changed since the elections.

Now, the PCdoB (Communist Party of Brasil) wants to keep Silva at the head of the Sports Ministry for the Rousseff government. Dilma agreed. This may explain why just the other day, Silva was pretending not to know anything about the existence of the APO, saying “this thing is an idea, a concept, an organization that doesn’t exist.” This, despite the fact that Lula went to some trouble to approve a Medida Provisória (MP ) brining it into existence. However, the APO requires the approval of all three levels of government and Eduardo Paes, the little prince of Rio, has begun to grumble about the extraordinary authority given over to the APO. Without the approval (or involvement) of Paes in the APO it is unlikely that his cabal of city council members will approve the MP, leaving the 2016 Olympics without an organizing structure. I am not against the disappearance of the APO, as it appeared to be an institution designed to deliver money to the contractor friends of the governor and mayor. But the IOC must really be wondering what the hell is going on with the organization of the 2016 Games, as 15 months after awarding them to Rio, there is no clear direction being taken for their implementation.

There has been rumor that the Dilma government will create an independent ministry to organize the Olympics. This is exactly what Brazil needs: another level of bureaucracy to smooth out the problems of chronic delay that already plague public works.

It is clear that no one really knows what is going on. On the front page of the Rio 2016 website is a Maracanã project that is not being planned (according to the SUDERJ and Brazil 2014 descriptions). The main news that is being spammed to the media outlets is about the countdown to the launching of the Rio 2016 brand on New Year’s Eve (oh, so exciting). The city government is launching aggressive and violent campaigns to kick people out of their homes so that huge concrete sluices can carry buses back and forth to the Olympic Zone in Barra de Tijuca. City, State, and Federal troops are occupying hills throughout the city.

Is this surprising? No. Why not? The same people who were in charge of the Pan American Games are directing the Olympics. The “legacy” benefits of that event were ZERO. Orlando Silva cited the event that he helped to direct as a failure (I heard him say this personally). Silva went so far as to blame the bloody defeat of Cesar Maia (former Rio mayor) in his bid for State Senator on the failures of the Pan. Ten years from now, who will we blame for the housing crisis, the lack of functional transportation, the poor air and water quality, the lack of decent jobs in the city, the absence of legacy benefits from the 2016 Olympics?

2016 Olympic Village apartments to cost R$400.000 each, to build...

The mega-builder Carvalho Hosken (one of the largest land holders in Barra de Tijuca the neighborhood where the majority of 2016 Olympic installations will be located), signed a contract today with Rio 2016 and the Rio city government to build the Olympic Village at a cost of R$1 Billion. Even without having fully negotated the terms of the loan from the Caixa Economica, Carvalho Hosken is set to build the 2.500 apartment residential complex.

The math is simple. One Billion divided by 2.500 = R$400.000. According to today's story, the "idea is to sell the apartments on the open market."

Looking back to the Pan American Games and the resulting emptiness of the Vila PanAmericana (which contrary to today's rosy reporting, has an occupancy level lower than 30% even though the majority of the apartments were sold after the Pan), we might be staring the same beast in the face. The VilaPan did not have sufficient financial backing, the scope of the project was reduced and the condominiums are mostly empty.

The head of Carvalho Hosken said of the 2016 Olympic Village "if I feel like I'm not going to be able to complete the project, I'll tell Nuzman (head of Rio 2016) and give up on the project." Great. So if C.H. can't finish the Olympic Village for a BILLION reales, then he'll give up and force someone else to take over at the last minute? Imagine what the average price for one of the apartments will be after this happens...R$500.000, R$600.000? This will certainly solve the grave housing crisis in Rio de Janeiro.

While this is going on, the Rio city government is ticking off a list of 119 favelas to be removed in the lead-up to the games. Many of these are within sight of the future Olympic Village. The Tribunal das Contas da União, responsible for monitoring government spending is going to have its work cut out for it. They still haven't finished processing people for the PAN 2007.

In other news, the Communist Party of Brasil (CPdoB) has begun to insist that the current Minister of Sport, Orlando Silva, maintain his post and not be shuffled over to head the Autoridade Publico Olímpico, the parallel government that will be responsible for building the Olympic City. We have already seen the ousting of Ricardo Leyser from the position of CEO of BRASIL 2016 (the private company that will be contracted  by the APO on a no-bid basis). Are the deck chairs being shuffled because the stink of the PAN is still heavy around all these Olympic insiders? Or is there a genuine effort to find people who are qualified for the job?

The World Cup and the Elimination of Public Memory

The Maracanã is one of the most famous stadiums in all of human history. Constructed to host the 1950 World Cup final, its official capacity was 179,000. Brazilians happily referred to the colossal stadium as “O Maior do Mundo” – the biggest in the world. Over the years, hundreds of thousands gathered in the Maracanã to watch football. To create football. To live football. It was in the Maracanã that Santos F.C. and Pelé won the World Club Championship in 1961. Flamengo and Zico did the same in 1981. Pelé chose the Maracanã as the place to score his 1,000^th goal. Since then, the goal itself has been known as the “Gol de Pelé”. The other goal is known as the “Gol de Garrincha” because that is where, in the 79^th minute of the World Cup final in 1950, with the score tied 1-1, the Uruguayan winger killed the dreams of a nation.

This is not a tale of romanticized melodrama, it’s culture. It’s living, breathing, screaming, flag-waving, carnavelesque culture, and it’s being killed as you read this. . The reforms underway to “prepare” Brazilian stadiums to host the 2014 World Cup are literally eliminating the spaces where Brazilian football culture takes place. The Maracanã has undergone a series of hatchet jobs. In 1999, the capacity was reduced from 179,000 to 129,000. Before the FIFA World Club Championships in 2000, the Maracanã suffered the idiocy of “luxury boxes” that only served to cut off the air circulation and eliminate the use of the monumental ramps that define the stadium’s exterior.  In 2004-2005, a R$450 million reform reduced the capacity to 85,000, eliminated the standing only section, lowered the field by 3 meters, and installed big screen tvs that are about to be thrown out. Why? Because the “Maior do Mundo” is undergoing a projected R$720 million reform that will reduce the capacity to 75,000, install a roof so no one but the players get wet, and will actually reduce the length of the field by 7 meters and its width by 5 meters. Both the Gol de Pelé and the Gol de Garrincha will die. Those spaces, those places, the goal line where history and culture were made and remembered and recreated and forgotten and relived and renewed week after week, season after season, year after year, for six decades – gone. Poof. Já era. Public memory, public culture, one of the constituent elements of civil society – extinguished with a torrent of public money.

This is not only happening in Rio de Janeiro. The Minerão in Belo Horizonte is undergoing the same process. The Fonte Novo in Salvador, already reduced to rubble. The Vivaldão in Manaus is no more. The stadiums that are going up in their place are temples of consumption, sanitized environments that facilitate the circulation of capital, VIP salons where culture is consumed and not produced, air-conditioned fortresses, highly securitized off-worlds, crystalline shopping malls that require one parking spot for every six spectators. The 2014 World Cup stadiums in Fortaleza, Cuiabá, Manaus, Natal, and Brasilia will have no post-cup functionality. The World Cup stadiums will have such high maintenance costs that they can only be supported though public subsidy. We just saw this happen in South Africa, where residents of Cape Town are debating whether or not to implode the Green Point stadium. This is as revolting as it is sickening and immoral.

Why are public officials so willing to invest BILLIONS in public funds to erect stadia that :

1)      have no relationship to the urban environment?

2)      have no post-event uses?

3)      are undertaken with no input from those who use the stadiums?

4)      forcibly dislocate communities to make way for a “clean” television shot?

5)      will never have any economic viability, never make a return on the public investment?

6)      become privatized during the World Cup, where only FIFA security forces operate, where the only profits accrue to FIFA and their rapacious partners?

7)      destroy the very places where public culture and memory are created, preserved, lived, and transformed?

It doesn’t have to be this way. There is a different model. There is a way to make the democratically elected officials wake up from their soporific state of infatuation with corrupt FIFA overlords. The Minster of Sport and Culture, a member of the Communist Party of Brazil, is leading the way towards the destruction of sport and culture. O que isso?!?!! The project of ANT (torcedores.org) is to change the direction of these projects, to democratize the World Cup, to make it something Brazilian, not something from Switzerland. Within two weeks of ANT’s foundation the association has nearly 1,000 members throughout Brazil. One by one, the march of the formigas (ants) will grow, and by sheer force of numbers the white elephants will be consumed.

And the winner of the Maraca project is...

The biggest civil engineering firms in Brazil!

The Rio State Government awarded the Maracanã construction contract to Consórico Brasil 2014, a consortium composed of the massive civil construction firms Andrade Gutierrez, Delta and Odebrecht. The stated reason for the victory - they came in with the lowest bid, R$712,000,000 a whopping 2.4% below the allocated budget.

This rationale for selecting a construction company is nullified by a tidy exception in the law when dealing with architectural reform projects. Because the Maracanã is undergoing “renovation” the law permits contractual readjustments up to 50% of the contracted value. Therefore, the legal limit for the Novo Maracanã project will be R$1,068,000,000 (R$1.068 billion). Why not spend it? When added to the R$ 430 million spent between 2005-2007 on reforms for the Pan American Games…R$ 1,498,000,000. This number reflects the best case scenario. 

To reiterate: the federal and state governments are spending at least one point five billion Reales (US$ 881 million) on a stadium in a city where less than 20% of public schools have recreational areas for students. This is yet another example of the prioritization of contracts with international sporting agencies taking precedence over the social contract of a democracy.

There is a meeting being held today between the State Secretary of Sport and Leisure, the Company for Public Works (EMOP) and a representative of Consórico Brasil 2014 to determine when the project will actually begin. The longer they wait, the more money there is to be sucked out of the public coffers.

Does anyone remember, way back when Brazil was first going about organizing the World Cup, that the Minister of Sport said, “The government is not planning to use public money for the construction or remodeling of stadiums.”  (Folha do SP 31.11.07). The private sectors is not jumping in BECAUSE IT IS A BAD INVESTMENT.

FIFA’s deadline of December 31, 2012 is driving the entire process. FIFA’s absurd demands informed the architectural project, the cost, the way that urban space around the stadium will reshaped and exploited for private profit. The public interest is the last item on the agenda. All that matters now is that the state and federal governments get the check book ready so the city, state and federal governments can pay Brazil 2014 to deliver on a promise made to organized criminals.

But don't despair, Brazilian taxpayers, there is still hope that the process can be delayed even further because the losing bidders have the chance to suspend the contract process through legal means. The underhanded dealings of the licitação are reflective of the total lack of transparency in general. All of the candidates were informed (via fax) after business hours on Monday night that the winning bid would be announced on Tuesday morning. In reading between the lines of OGlobo’s characteristically Prozac-influenced reporting, the faxed messages included information telling companies that they were disqualified because their bids were outside of the required parameters. The eleventh-hour notification was not accidental. This is a game played with marked cards. 

I will get used to this opacity, eventually, but it really does seem to be much more work to hide everything than to negotiate in the light of day. One of the terrible beauties of Brazilian bureaucracy is that there are so many forms and agencies and permissions and confusions, that there is inevitably something wrong with everything, which always provides an excuse to eliminate a company from the competition. Will there be collusion between Brasil 2014 and the losing bids in order to delay the process for another six months so that the budget for the project will increase as FIFA’s version of the Mayan Calendar comes to a close? 

The news from Manaus is no better. The Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU, the federal auditor) and the Ministério Público Federal (MPF, the federal judiciary) are investigating a supposed budgetary overrun of R$749 million. This money is related to the construction of the Arena Manaus and a monorail, two things that Manaus could desperately live without. Of the R$1.3 billion destined for the monorail, R$686 million are in question. Brincadeira. Of the R$ 591 million intended for the stadium (in a city that does not have a team in any of the top three Brazilian divisions), R$63 million are in question.  Various federal investigative agencies are wading through the mess, which so far only involves the contracting stage. Imagine once the project actually gets moving! Multiple the situation in Manaus x 12 and you get the general picture for the 2014 World Cup. 

Minister of Sport Orlando Silva lets a big cat out of a small bag

In a nod to the geography of the obvious, Orlando Silva Jr., Lula's Minister of Sport, confirmed yesterday that only 8 cities are necessary to host the World Cup. Cities that have not begun their construction projects by May 3 run the risk of being eliminated from the tournament. This includes Rio de Janeiro, Natal, Salvador, São Paulo, Cuiaba, Manaus, and a couple others that have not yet made public the bidding for the projects. 


Silva also confirmed that it was president Lula that made the decision to have 12 instead of 8 cities involved in the World Cup, comfirming the notion that the World Cup is an opportunity for political favoritism, paybacks, nepotism, and party politics to run their unhappy course. No one has yet mentioned anything about the problems of having the head of the CBF also direct the Local Organizing Committee or that his daughter is the secretary general, or that they're both related to the former president of FIFA.  


The World Cup should happen in Brasil, but it should not be a German, Swiss, French, or British World Cup. It can be done with fiscal constraint, with intelligent planning, with coordination between cities and states, with the involvement of urban and regional planners, with intelligent architects who design stadiums that fold into the urban and social fabric before, during, and after the Cup. Since the projects have yet to begin, there is still hope, but time is running out. 


The minister's unscripted recognition (that he later recanted) that there are multiple projects way behind schedule, and that the federal government could not and would not take responisbility for overssing the projects because they "are an issue that the cities and states have to deal with", clearly demonstrates a lack of co-ordination and the faulty institutional structures that allow billions to flow seamlessly from government coffers into private pockets, while delivering hastily constructed behemoths that have no relationship with the people and places in which they squat.