A Copa Gangrenosa - The gangrene Cup

The 2014 World Cup Schedule is out! I know you have all been waiting to hear what I think about it but I will let you make up your mind by showing you some data.

Group A cities	Games
São Paulo	BRA:A2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Natal	A3:A4	BRA	3127	2200	5327
Fortaleza	BRA:A3	A2	3971	5698	9669
Manaus	A2:A4	A3	537	800	1337
Brasilia	BRA:A4	A4	5985	3490	9475
Recife	A2:A3		13620	12188	25808

This is the table of games for Group A, which will be headed by Brazil. Each group in the 2014 Cup will play in six cities. The table above charts the cities, the teams that will be playing, and the travel distances for each team between those cities. If we follow Brazil (A1), they play in São Paulo, Fortaleza, and Brasília in the first round. The distance between São Paulo and Fortaleza, 3127 km. Between Fortaleza and Brasília is 2200km = 5327km. Team A4, will have to travel 9475km between the cities they play in (Natal-Manaus-Brasilia). the group as a whole, for six games will travel at least 25808km.

This does not, of course, take into account that Brazil will have their training center in Rio de Janeiro and will fly back and forth between games. Assuming that Brazil makes the semi-final, the team will travel 16,110 km. Brazil’s travel schedule is not as bad as it could be. For instance, whichever team has the misfortune to be G4 (in 2010 it was North Korea), the travel distance for two flights will be 11683km (Natal-Manaus-Recife).
Ok, so the teams have to travel a lot, an average of 3239km per game between the cities for the first round, or a total of 136,052 km. (Remember this does not take into account the distance for the 31 teams to get to Brazil, the return trips to training centers, or the movement of FeeFã people that accompany the games). If we even half-heartedly believe in the tourist numbers thrown about by the organizing committee and assume that the generalized financial crisis will have ebbed and that the Mayan calendar page turn isn’t a mega-event of its own, then we can add 300,000 tourists who will want to follow their teams around Brazil. Say, 5,000 people per game? That’s 20 flights x the average distance of 3,239 per game x 42 first round games = 2,720,760 km of air travel.

On the bright side, some of the stadium roofs will be designed so that they recycle rain water into the toilets. How quaint.

Other interesting tidbits of info that came out of the 2014 WC schedule: stadia that are being designed as white elephants will receive the fewest games. Cuiabá: 4; Manaus: 4; Natal: 4; Recife: 5. Combined, these cities are investing R$1,9 billion (so far) in stadium construction in order to host 17 games of football. That’s 2040 minutes of jogo bonito, or R$93,137 for every minute of World Cup action!!!! There are also huge discrepancies between the distances that teams will have to travel which will surely have an impact on fans and players. Here’s the full schedule, feel free to crunch the data and come up with your own conclusions:
   

Group A	Games
São Paulo	A1:A2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Natal	A3:A4	BRA	3127	2200	5327
Fortaleza	A1:A3	A2	3971	5698	9669
Manaus	A2:A4	A3	537	800	1337
Brasilia	A1:A4	A4	5985	3490	9475
Recife	A2:A3		13620	12188	25808

Group B
Cuiaba	B1:B2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Salvador	B3:B4	B1	2017	852	2869
Porto Alegre	B2:B4	B2	2206	1109	3315
Rio de Janeiro	B1:B3	B3	1678	429	2107
Curitiba	B1:B4	B4	3090	711	3801
São Paulo	B2:B3		8991	3101	12092

Group C
Belo Horizonte	C1:C2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Recife	C3:C4	C1	716	1133	1849
Brasilia	C1:C3	C2	2348	537	2885
Natal	C2:C4	C3	2135	2200	4335
Cuiabá	C1:C4	C4	298	3543	3841
Fortaleza	C2:C3		5497	7413	12910

Group D
Fortaleza	D1:D2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Manaus	D3:D4	D1	3127	2947	6074
São Paulo	D1:D3	D2	800	2061	2861
Recife	D2:D4	D3	3971	586	4557
Natal	D1:D4	D4	5698	298	5996
Belo Horizonte	D2:D3		13596	5892	19488

Group E
Brasilia	E1:E2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Porto Alegre	E3:E4	E1	1336	4036	5372
Curitiba	E1:E3	E2	1446	1678	3124
Salvador	E2:E4	E3	711	852	1563
Manaus	E1:E4	E4	3090	5009	8099
Rio de Janeiro	E2:E3		6583	11575	18158

Group F
Rio de Janeiro	F1:F2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Curitiba	F3:F4	F1	439	1712	2151
Belo Horizonte	F1:F3	F2	2017	2566	4583
Cuiaba	F2:F4	F3	1004	1372	2376
Porto Alegre	F1:F4	F4	1697	2206	3903
Salvador	F2:F3		5157	7856	13013

Group G
Salvador	G1:G2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Natal	G3:G4	G1	1389	800	2189
Fortaleza	G1:G3	G2	5009	3490	8499
Manaus	G2:G4	G3	537	2200	2737
Recife	G1:G4	G4	5985	5698	11683
Brasilia	G2:G3		12920	12188	25108

Group H
Belo Horizonte	H1:H2	Team	KM game 1-2	KM game 2-3	TOTAL KM
Cuiaba	H3:H4	H1	439	429	868
Porto Alegre	H2:H4	H2	1712	711	2423
Rio de Janeiro	H1:H3	H3	2017	852	2869
Curitiba	H2:H3	H4	2206	1109	3315
São Paulo	H1:H4		6374	3101	9475

Fat-Fingered Blind Parrots and a Hairless Canadian Monkey with Keys

Back in 2004 when I was doing research for Temples of the Earthbound Gods I had an encounter with Eduardo Viana, then president of the Rio State Football Federation (FERJ). The now deceased Viana ran FERJ like Ricardo Teixeira runs the CBFdp, out of a black box. The only way I was able to get a list of the professional teams in the State of Rio was through the grace of a secretary who cobbled some documents together for me. No one in the institution, other than this secretary, had or was willing to give any information about anything. FERJ would be considered a throwback to an older way of running football, except in Brazil there has never been any modernization or modification from the times when fleshy men with fat, ringed fingers pulled levers behind closed doors. Viana’s descendents are still in control at FERJ and everyone was very excited to receive State Secretary of Tourism and Leisure Márcia Lins who finally reappeared in the media to open the new FERJ headquarters the other day. The news coverage of this non-event was confusing, as it conflated the rumors of the Maracanã`s future privatization with the opening of FERJ-lânida:

"O edital de concessão do Maracanã para a iniciativa privada deve ser lançado no segundo semestre de 2012, antes mesmo da conclusão do estádio, prevista para fevereiro de 2013.

A informação foi confirmada ontem pela secretária estadual de Esporte e Lazer do Rio de Janeiro, Márcia Lins, durante a inauguração da nova sede da Federação de Futebol fluminense (Ferj). Orçada em R$ 776 milhões, a obra é tocada com recursos do orçamento estadual."

"The information was confirmed yesterday by the State Secretary of Sport and Leisure of Rio de Janeiro, Márcia Lins, during the inauguration of the new offices of the Fluminense Football Federation. Budgeted for R$776 million, the project is funded by the state treasury."

We all know that the Maracanã is going to cost much, much more than that, hence I was confused about what project they were referring to. Finding how much public money went into the FERJ building will be difficult, but not nearly as difficult as untangling the rats’ nest that is the Maracanã.  Here’s a question I posed to the fine folks at the State Secretary for Sports and Leisure:

Geostadia:Qual seria a diferença nos custos de manutenção pre e pós reforma? What will be the difference in the maintenance costs pré and post reform.

SUDERJ: Ainda não há previsão. There’s no projection.

Now wait just a minute. The stadium is undergoing a billion R$ reform and no one knows how much the stadium is going to cost in upkeep? This answer came on October 10^th in response to a question posed on September 6^th. That’s the answer in its entirety. They don’t know and apparently don’t care. The job of most Press Secretaries in Brazil is to tell you that people are busy or that no one has any information and that you should call back after lunch. We do know that stadiums cost approximately 10% of their initial cost in yearly maintenance, so we can project around R$100,000,000 per year. Thus in ten years, another billion will be spent on the Maracanã.

Romário continues his roundhouse kicks to the heads of the government brain trust in charge of the World Cup preparations. He’s part of the Fórum Legislativo da Copa de 2014 which is in Rio this week poking around. Romário is calling people out, stating the obvious: “It’s sad to see the Maracanã like this, it’s totally disfigured, it’s no longer the same stadium…When we see the projects on powerpoint, everything looks marvelous, but the reality is very different…The World Cup is a great event, but it only lasts one month. We have other priorities.” Thank you, Romário. Stating and explaining the obvious is the most complicated thing to do.

Trash, trash, trash. If it’s a big problem with mega-events, it’s a total nightmare in Rio. Last week, I attended a public hearing about the redesign of the city law that grants permits for events to occur. One of the most serious public servants I have encountered, Gustavo Puppi, explained the disaster that mega-events of all kinds bring to the administration of COMLURB (the city’s trash collection service). In addition to generating thousands of extra tons of garbage per year, COMLURB has to reduce service in the Zona Norte to clean up the increased mess in the Zona Sul. The effects of these parties radiate unevenly through the city. At the Rock [sic] in Rio party, there was almost no coordination between the event producer and COMLURB, making their task doubly difficult. Worse, the Municipal and State governments can’t get organized enough to figure out how to deal with all the trash generated by the city. Between the closing of the Gramacho aterro and the opening of the dump in Seriopédica (which will not allow for catadores, the subject of Wasteland), more than 80% of Rio de Janeiro’s trash goes to informal dumps. Go on, tell me another one about mega-event sustainability.

At the same public audience, headed up by city councilman Messina, were representatives from RIOTOUR, SETRANS (state transportation), and the Bombeiros (state fire dept). The opening salvo from the RIOTOUR representative dealt with the importance of Formula One racing to the city of Monaco, comparing the impact of a once yearly event in an isolated European tax-haven and principality with the role of mega-events in a city of 13 million in Brazil. This paradigm of clear thinking then recited the usual litany of tired Barcelona comparisons. Where is this inexhaustible fountain of kool-aid that these blind parrots keep drinking from? I’m thirsty from shouting them down. The SETRANS fellow was well- satisfied with the special transportation system that brought the adoring 40,000 Justin Beiber fans to the Engenhão (aka Stadium Rio, ex-Estádio Olímpico João Havelange), but couldn’t explain why there was no special transportation scheme for football matches. This is clearly no longer the pais do futebol,  but rather a country in which a pre-pubescent Canadian gets the key to the city while ordinary people are treated like cattle. If that key opens one of El Principe’s black boxes, that’s cool with me, but Justin Bloody Beiber!?!?!?!? The kid is not even old enough to drive, what’s he going to do with a key to the city?

The handing of the key to the young Bieber puts this macaco pelado canadense  in the mixed company of recent key recipients: the Mexican band Maná, Joseph Blatter president of FIFA, the promoter of Rock [sic] in Rio Roberto Media, Rei Momo Milton Junior, Blu (?), and Apostolo Renê Terra. I am taking bets on the next round of key distribution, giving three to one odds on IOC president Jacque Rogge and million to one odds on a certain gringo professor. 

And to round off a spectacular post, even more interesting facts about the Maracanã. In addition to reducing the capacity by 42%, the size of the field is getting whacked by 16%. This will forever impact the kind of football played at the stadium. As a mode of comparison, check out the following table which lists the sizes of the notoriously small English grounds (in square yards) with the sad trajectory of the Maracanã. Not only are the stadiums para ingles ver, but they are increasingly para jogar como os ingleses. No more time on the ball, no more jogo da cintura, no more individualism. Tight marking and long balls, yes sir mister sir. 

Maracanã  2009, 120.3 x 82.02 yards, 9867 1. Manchester City, City of Manchester Stadium, 116 x 77 yards, 8932 2. Manchester United, Old Trafford, 116 x 76 yards, 8816 3. Blackburn Rovers, Ewood Park, 115 x 76 yards, 8740 4. Everton, Goodison Park, 112 x 78 yards, 8736 5. Aston Villa, Villa Park, 114 x 75 yards, 8550 6. Middlesbrough, Riverside, 114 x 75 yards, 8550 Maracanã  2013, 114.8 x 74.3 yards, 8529 7. Arsenal, Emirates Stadium, 114 x 74 yards, 8436 8. Derby County, Pride Park, 114 x 74 yards, 8436 9. Reading, Madjeski Stadium, 111 x 76 yards, 8436 10. Sunderland, Stadium of Light, 114 x 74 yards, 8436 11. Wigan Athletic, JJB Stadium, 114 x 74 yards, 8436 12. Portsmouth, Fratton Park, 115 x 73 yards, 8395 13. Chelsea, Stamford Bridge, 110 x 75 yards, 8250 14. Fulham, Craven Cottage, 110 x 75 yards, 8250 15. Liverpool, Anfield, 110 x 75 yards, 8250 16. Birmingham City, St. Andrews, 110 x 74 yards, 8140 17. Newcastle United, St. James’s Park, 110 x 73 yards, 8030 18. Tottenham Hotspur, White Hart Lane, 110 x 73 yards, 8030 19. Bolton Wanderers, Reebok Stadium, 110 x 72 yards, 7920 20. West Ham United, Boleyn Ground, 110 x 70 yards, 7700

Banal idiocy on a bike

The banal occurrences of daily life in Rio flit between the poles of the annoying and ridiculous. If it were almost any other city in the world, Rio de Janeiro would be completely impossible to aguentar (deal with), but because it’s so staggeringly beautiful, we accept and even encourage the magnificently wrongheaded race to the bottom that qualifies as public policy and urban planning. Comparable to an airbrushed super-model, Rio looks great and is seductively pouty but it’s a fragile image that belies serious eating disorders, exploitation, macho blinkeredness, and complicit consumers who fail to question a system that sends millions of women to the gym to reduce their bodies while their male counterparts get their vanity muscles inflated to cartoonish proportions.  

An example, if I may. The ferry that crosses Guanabara Bay is run by a private company via a concession given by the State Government. This is also known as privatization. Recently, the same idiot who was responsible for the bonde disaster in Santa Teresa (State Secretary of Transportation Júlio Lopes) allowed Barcas S.A. to eliminate night-time service because the company was not making enough money. There is virtually no bus service after mid-night so if you’re caught on the wrong side of the bay, the only practical solution is taxi: R$40 – 50. In this instance, the idiocy is allowing the incompetent state secretary of transportation to act on behalf of the private company.

Last week, I attempted to go by bicycle from Rio to Niterói. Arriving at Praça XV was a challenge because there is no bike path that links anything in the center of town to anything else. One has to brave the inferno of Rua Primeiro de Março where there is an excellent chance of becoming another statistic:  one cyclist is killed every ten days in Rio de Janeiro. Once to the ferry, in addition to the R$2.80 passenger fee, the intrepid cyclist must pay an additional R$4.70 for the bike! R$15 for a two way passage. Ridiculous and illegal according to a judgment handed down in June.

To make the ridiculous something else, in order to take one’s bike onto the ferry I was told I had to roll through the disembarkation where I fought against a literal human tide in order to put my bike on the waiting platform. After parting the crowd, I arrived on the platform and handed my baggage ticket to security. Just then, the bell signaling immediate departure tolled, but not for me. I had my boarding ticket in hand and wanted to take my bike and enter the ferry. In an amazing leap of logistics, I proffered said ticket to the security guard but in an equally stunning leap backwards he told me that I had to leave my bike with him, return to the front of the terminal, pass through the turnstiles, go back to where I was at that very moment, hand over my ticket stub, and then take my bike onto the ferry. I argued. The Napoleonic supervisor arrived, chest inflated with absolute rules to follow, absolutely. I huffed and puffed while the boat left without me.

Is there a greater dis-stimulus to riding a bike in this city than charging more than twice as much to bring a bike across the bay? To make matters worse, riding a bike in Niterói is far more dangerous than it is in Rio. As I was formally complaining to Barcas S.A., I was told that this dance-around-the-turnstile practice was formalized after some idiot decided to ride his bike onto the ferry and ended up hurting someone. This is the problem: the policies and rules of most public spaces and entities in Brazil are designed to attend to the lowest possible level of human decision making, that is, the idiots rule or the rule of the idiots. To wit, one idiot does something idiotic with a bike, the rest of us are treated like idiots who have to follow idiotic and inflexible rules designed to relieve anyone who receives a salary from having to take any responsibility for what happens under their watch.

Idiotic transportation practice #2: the new BRT lines will have no bicycle lanes. Even though the Glorious Prince of Rio de Janeiro likes to show off on his bike and skateboard from time to time, there is no safe, functional way of getting around this city on a bike, nor will there be, even though it is in practice much faster to go between most of Rio’s Zona Sul neighborhoods by bike than it is by bus, metro, or car. The OGloBobo reports about the city being “disposed” to bike traffic only showed pictures from the bike path in Botafogo and Flamengo. They must take us for idiots, which I suppose we are. The only days that you can put a bike on the Metro are Sundays and feriados and there is no bus in the city that has the capacity for bikes, nor will there be. This idiotic lack, combined with the increasingly insane and maddening traffic situation in the city, will eventually clog the city so tightly that not even Dick Cheney’s heart surgeon will be able to fix the problem.

Next up: more idiocy from RIOTOUR, the FERJ pigs at the trough, Orlando Silva in the crosshairs. 

Para além de Ricardo Teixeira, por Marcos Alvito

With apologies for English-only readers. This text speaks to the growing movement to get rid of Ricardo Teixeira, the doddering, tottering head of the CBF(dp). It is not enough to cut off the head of the snake, but to undertake a radical reformation of Brazilian football in general. The negotiations going on today in Brussels between Dilma (Brazilian President) and FIFA represent a small effort to maintain some national dignity in the face of the parasitic demands that FIFA make on their hosts. In question, retaining the half-price tickets for students, state employees, and those over 60 as well as maintaing the ban on alcohol sales in stadia during the World Cup. Gulp. Or rather, not gulp. Get your flasks ready people! Swig. [Just after posting this, Dilma caved into FIFA's demands, eliminating the half-price tickets for students and kids under 12 and allowing the flow of Budweiser in the WC stadia. Bud is owened by Brazilian AmBev and we are starting to see a massive media campaign to promote it.]

If there are any willing translators out there I will gladly post a translated version of Marcos Alvito's text. Viva o Formigueiro!

Para além de Ricardo Teixeira – uma proposta para o futebol brasileiro

Imaginemos o futebol brasileiro sem Ricardo Teixeira, para além de Ricardo Teixeira. Será que isso bastaria para democratizar a nossa estrutura de clubes que tem milhões de torcedores e meia dúzia de eleitores?  Ou a carcomida organização das federações estaduais, que há mais de duas décadas prestam vassalagem ao presidente da CBF? Será que isto faria com que a CBF deixasse de ser um gigolô autorizado da seleção brasileira, tornando-se uma entidade preocupada efetivamente com o futebol brasileiro? Será que isto diminuiria o preço absurdo dos ingressos, trazendo de volta as classes populares aos estádios? Será que isto reverteria a destruição da geral do Maracanã, da Coréia do Internacional e de muitas outras áreas onde o povo brasileiro criou uma forma original e carnavalesca de torcer?  Será que isto cessaria a exploração da mão de obra infantil pelas escolinhas dos clubes e a transformação destes meninos em mercadorias negociadas por empresários? Será que isto faria com que houvesse maior estímulo à prática do futebol por meninas e incentivo às mulheres que corajosamente praticam um esporte que as exclui sistematicamente? Será que isto barraria o processo de criminalização inconstitucional das torcidas organizadas? Será que isto acabaria com o lucrativo negócio dos cambistas em dias de jogos, permitido nós sabemos por quem? Será que isto retiraria de uma determinada rede de televisão o controle das tabelas e dos horários, fazendo dos jogos uma sobremesa das novelas e impondo riscos e sacrifícios aos torcedores? Será que isto faria com que torcedores fossem tratados com respeito pela polícia e pelas autoridades, ao invés de serem vistos como animais irracionais? Será que isto faria com que o potencial do futebol como instrumento educativo e de conscientização seria finalmente compreendido?

Por tudo isso, nós da ANT (Associação Brasileira dos Torcedores e Torcedoras) acreditamos que não basta o Fora Ricardo Teixeira. Fomos os primeiros a pedir a sua saída, ainda em 2010. Mas temos certeza de que é preciso ir muito além. É preciso que as “escolinhas” sejam transformadas em escolas profissionalizantes garantindo o futuro de milhares de jovens que acreditam no futebol como uma possibilidade de ascensão social. É preciso que ao menos 30% dos assentos dos novos estádios construídos com dinheiro público sejam reservados a ingressos populares, com uma fiscalização rigorosa para impedir os cambistas. É preciso que o futebol seja utilizado em campanhas pela igualdade de gêneros, contra o racismo e a homofobia. É preciso que as torcidas organizadas sejam entendidas como parte importante da cultura do futebol brasileiro, embora deva haver tolerância zero para a violência, quando ela vier a ocorrer. É preciso que a polícia pare investigue ao invés de bater. É preciso que haja um sistema de transportes eficiente, com esquemas especiais em dias de jogos. É preciso democratizar a estrutura do futebol brasileiro de alto a baixo. É preciso ouvir os torcedores e suas associações antes de empreender mudanças. E, por último, mas não menos importante: Fora Ricardo Teixeira!

Beyond Ricardo Teixeira (Translation by Paige Battcher, USC Graduate School of Policy, Planning, and Development (USA)

Can we Imagine football without Ricardo Teixeira, beyond Ricardo Teixeira?  Will this be sufficient to democratize our Club structure that has millions of fans and half a dozen voters? Or the rotten organization of bureaucratic federations, which have provided more than two decades of servitude to the President of the CBF? Will this cause the CBF to stop being a gigolo to authorized squads, becoming an entity effectively concerned with Brazilian football?  Will this decrease the absurd price of tickets, bringing back the popular classes to stadiums? Will this roll back the destruction of the geral of the Maracanã [stadium], Coréia International and many other areas where the Brazilian people created an original way and carnival-like twist [referring to the unique seating --rather standing --of the Geral]? Will this stop the exploitation of child labor by small schools of clubs and the transformation of these boys into merchandize traded by entrepreneurs? Will this cause there to be greater stimulus to the practice of football for girls and encouragement for women who courageously practice a sport that systematically excludes them? Will this ban the process of the unconstitutional criminalization in these crooked organizations? Will this end the lucrative business of scalping [tickets] on days of games, when we know by whom [the scalpers] are allowed to operate? Will this remove control of a particular television network over the show schedules, which have been depicting the games as sweet stories [one-sided] and imposing risks and sacrifices on the fans? Will this make it so that fans are treated with respect by police and authorities, rather than being seen as irrational animals? Will this cause the potential of football as an instrument of education and awareness to be finally understood?

For all of this, we at ANT (Brazilian Association of fans [men and women]) believe that it’s not enough to oust Ricardo Teixeira. We were the first to ask for his departure, back in 2010. But we have certainty that there is a need to go much further. It is necessary that the "football schools" are transformed into professional vocational schools ensuring the future of thousands of young people who believe in football as a possibility of social mobility. It is necessary that at least 30% of the seats of the new stadiums built with public funds are reserved for popular tickets [affordable and unrestrictive], with close monitoring to prevent scalpers. We need football to be utilized in campaigns for gender equality, and against racism and homophobia. It is necessary that fans organizations are understood as an important part of the culture of Brazilian soccer, although there should be zero tolerance for violence, when it occurs. It is necessary for police to stop to investigate instead of striking back. It is necessary to have an efficient system of transportation, with special arrangements on match days. There needs to be a democratization of Brazilian football from top to bottom. We must listen to the fans and their associations before undertaking changes. And last but not least: Oust Ricardo Teixeira!

Marcos Alvito é historiador e antropólogo, professor da UFF e membro da ANT (Associação Nacional dos Torcedores e Torcedoras)

A free, flowing conduit of useful information

While reading the press releases and media reports about the Brazilian mega-event cycle, I have found it useful to keep on hand seminal works by (among others) Kafka, Machiavelli, Joseph Campbell, Sartre, Foucault, Agamben, David Harvey, John Horne, Naomi Klein, Chico Buarque, Fernanda Sánchez, Ruth Levy and Monty Python. The following video clip from The Life of Brian explains all one needs to know about the attempts of Rio 2016 and FeeFã to limit the use of particular words. Substitute “Olympic” for “Jehovah” and batons, shock troops, and Glocks for stones.

In addition to “being about” real-estate speculation as Chris Shaw poignantly demonstrates in Five Ring Circus, megas are also about the international arms trade. In August, the Military Police of Rio signed a contract with the Austrian arms manufacturer Glock to use the 9mm weapon as the “official” gun of mega-event security. This didn’t get much play in the media, but the link can be found here as well as on the LinkedIn Support the Organizing Committee group. Naturally, Glock flew the head honchos of the PM to Austria for a contract signing / head-in-a-bucket-of-vodka-and-red-bull party. Glocks do not have external safety mechanisms. Nice choice. Apparently, on exit, the bullets will leave five rings instead of one large hole. What’s next, a billy club that leaves the Olympic imprint on the skull? Five ring handcuffs? An Olympic drone-flying competition? My money is on the USAmericans there.

I can’t wait for the bloody Pope to get here in 2013 with his horde of young, brainwashed original sinners. The Lordships of Rio have literally taken things to the next level with the signing of a contract with the Vatican to bring the World Youth Day to Rio. This year, his holy-moly-ness extended the “fruits of divine grace” to Spanish youth that had had an abortion. Lovely of him to double down on that Catholic guilt, thanks.  I wonder if there will be speculation about an increase in prostitution surrounding this event. With hundreds of thousands of affluent adolescents running about in a town known for its sexual tourism, there are sure to be some bottled up hormones in loose pockets. And as if to justify the event by connecting it to the already over-justified events that are siphoning off public money into private hands, the Holy See is going to “invest in sport”, whatever the hell that means.

Oh, the Cup. The World Cup. The Copa do Mundo. O Mundial da FeeFã. It’s wrong, all wrong. The wheels are coming off before they’ve been put on, which is a pretty accurate reflection of the way Rio de Janeiro functions, or not. It’s confusing and simple at the same time.

Let’s start with costs. According to the Folha do São Paulo, World Cup related projects have increased by R$ 27 billion in 8 months. It’s hard to convert that figure this week as the Real has jumped from US$1.60 to US$1.90 in two weeks. But if we project this increase forward 1000 days, that will be around a R$100 billion increase. Without question, the Brazilian 2014 World Cup will be more expensive than all of the World Cups combined. This is no joke. We will likely arrive at a number well above R$130 billion and the majority of the projects will still not be ready.

The slowness of the contracting process has been exacerbated by the lack of planning on the part of the organizers. The closer we get to the Cup, the more things will cost to construct. Also, because of higher than expected inflation, the weakening of the Real against the Euro and Dollar which is making imports more expensive, the scarcity of qualified labor, the increase in construction materials because of Brazil’s construction and economic boom, the structural corruption of the big civil construction firms and their friends in government and the lack of interest on the part of the CBFdp and FeeFã to do anything in the realm of transparency…you get the idea.

Not only have the stadium costs increased by 170% in three years but the maintenance costs will also see a commensurate increase. Typically, a stadium requires a 10% investment of the construction costs in yearly maintenance. The Maracanã will cost more than a billion. Thus, in ten years, another billion will be spent just to keep it standing. Remember, at least R$300 million of reforms were undertaken between 2005-2007 to reform the stadium for the Pan American Games. These were, naturally, poorly done as this photo demonstrates.

Add into the mix of confusion the strikes that have been occurring at several of the World Cup stadiums. Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Salvador have all had workers strike to improve working conditions. The latest stoppage at the Maracanã lasted nearly three weeks until the courts stepped in and sent the lads back to the job against their will. When Dilma went to Belo Horizonte to mark 1000 days until the 2014 kickoff the workers used the opportunity to strike. That didn’t make it into the press as Dilma and Pelé posed with some of the boys. According to the ever wise, always frightened Minister of Sport Orlando Silva (who certainly must be the least communist member of the Brazilian Communist Party), everything is on schedule. OGlobo is none too happy with the strikes, or the threat of strikes, suggesting that the “shadow” of work stoppages is slowing the country down.

The government presented an official balance of the World Cup projects last week. Notable was the fact that 51 or the 82 public works scheduled for the Copa have yet to begin. While I have always said that the question “Will Brazil be ready for the Cup?” is the wrong question, it is one that is getting plenty of negative answers.

Returning to the confusion that is Rio de Janeiro, it is worth noting that the city government continues to do everything it can to irritate residents in whatever form it can. Recently, an order was sent down to the Guarda Municipal to start cutting the locks of bicycles chained to signs, light posts, fences, and other logical places to lock a bike in the complete absence of bike racks. This has, with good reason, irritated those who try to get around the city by bike. In my visits to the Institute of Brazilian Architects, one of the institutions most involved with the “reworking” of urban space in Rio, there is nowhere to lock a bike. There are no bike racks at the vast majority of Metrô stations, and none at the train station. The city government claims that Rio has 150km of bike paths, but these are concentrated between the center and Leblon and maybe if you count the paths in both directions you could arrive at this number. Many of the city’s bike paths are painted onto sidewalks, end abruptly or are in terrible conditions. One of the headlines from OGlobo today was that the Day Without Cars will reduce by 2,000 the number of cars on Rio’s streets: a drop in the proverbial bucket. Cyclists are rightly upset about all of this and there is a protest getting underway tomorrow afternoon in front of the city council chambers.[editor's note: on Friday 23 Sept., the Mayor signed a decree legalizing the locking of bicycles to posts throughout the city. Well done! We hope that this is an indication of the power of public indignation.]

To magnify what is already a chaotic transportation scenario, work is beginning on the destruction of the elevated highway that runs around the center of downtown. Though a terrible idea to begin with, the elevated highway has become one of the principal arteries that link the Zona Sul, Zona Norte, and Niteroi. Whenever there is the most minor accident, traffic backs up for hours. Now, traffic will be blocked up for years. These are the kinds of costs that are never measured. Ostensibly, the highway is going underground in order to “renovate” the port zone, so that the real-estate speculators can cash in. This new system will in no way reduce traffic in a city that has long dedicated its urban planning practices to the private automobile. Having driven the length and breadth of this city, I can testify to the chaos and frustration that define the experience. As incomes increase, traffic is worsening in the suburbs as residents there buy the used cars from the wealthier regions. Riding past the port, one can see thousands of newly unloaded cars and trucks waiting to clog even further the streets of Rio. This is a global problem, of course, and one that the Day Without a Car will do absolutely nothing to resolve unless the urban planners working for the city recognize the need for alternative forms of transportation.

And finally, the Olympic governance structure continues to amaze and confuse. The Empresa Brasileira de Legado Esportivo Brasil 2016 erected to deal with the Olympic projects in Rio has been eliminated before it even began to function. This latest case of erectile disfunction is particularly troubling as the Empresa has already received around R$109,000 for its non-existent work, with money going to government officials including the above mentioned Orlando Silva. It will take some work to get a working knowledge of how the Olympics are going to be structured and this latest twist in the plot has not helped me wrap my head around it.

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.

Burden of Proof

The burden of proof of benefit for public works related to the World Cup and Olympics should fall on the government, not on civil society. What is happening in Brazil is that the master plans of cities have been altered to attend to the short term demands of Swiss-based NGOs, with the promise that the outpouring of tens of billions in public funds will generate short, medium, and long term benefits. Of course, the opening of public coffers for massive public project will inevitably generate jobs and secondary benefits for a limited range of social actors. However, the justifications (be they technocratic, economic, or geo-political/symbolic) for those projects and the ways in which they (ostensibly) fit into medium and long-term city planning mechanisms that will generate more just and livable cities are not in evidence at all. Herein lies part of the problem: mega-events, almost without exception, are predicated upon short term return on public investment for private industry – economic projections that indicate massive growth for small businesses are conducted by firms contracted to demonstrate just that. There is a farcical absence of independent economic analysis that justifies multi-billion dollar investments before these investments are made. The studies and reports that are coming out now about the World Cup and Olympics in Brazil are mechanism for justifying what is already underway. The inexorable, relentless carrying off of these projects at whatever cost, needs to be justified somehow. Much like the continual selling of various wars in the USA, the continual selling of mega-investment in Brazil is an exercise in public relations based in voodoo economics.

For readers new to this blog, I am attempting to cover the massive changes in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil from a perspective based in critical geography mixed with investigative journalism. That my comments here are almost wholly in opposition to the projects underway in Brazil is based on my decade of research into the ways that sports impact urban and social relations. There is a global tendency to de-politicize sports. No one likes to think of their leisure activity as yet another field of political action. However, everyone surely understands that the marriage of sports and nationalism in international competitions cannot be effectively separated from ideas of citizenship, notions of belonging, human rights, and the foundations of a global political-economy. The complications inherent to sport are multiplied and accelerated with the World Cup and Olympics, especially as they stimulate and accelerate myriad processes already present in the places / spaces in which they occur. Mega-events crystallize the articulations between the local and the national and the global wherever they occur, opening opportunities for the questioning of and resistance to the worrisome trends of social polarization and the implementation of ever more severe tactics of neo-liberal governance.

I changed the sub-heading of the blog to “Black Boxes and Trojan Horses” as an indication of the way I see these events unfolding. That the World Cup and (to a lesser extent) the Olympics operate in secrecy is no secret. We have yet to be presented with the governance structure of the 2014 World Cup. We don’t know how decisions are being made, just that there is little or no democratic input into the ‘system’ that is taking billions and restructuring cities and social relations, especially in relation to the use of public space, the installation of new security mechanisms, and the re-articulation of the right to the city. The Olympics have adopted a new governance mechanism that erects a non-governmental authority to direct the billions into project that are defined by the needs of the Games and not the city itself. That is to say, the city needs to be restructured to suit the Games, and not the other way around. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with this and am attempting to show how and where and when and why this is happening.

My comments are occasionally hyperbolic but always based in archival and field research that I am conducting. My interpretation of media reports and press releases is hopefully providing a different perspective into the euphoric vision of mega-events that dominates popular discourse. My ire and incredulity are not couched in anti-sport or anti-event rhetoric but rather come from my belief that the World Cup and Olympics are being used as opportunities to maximize capital accumulation opportunities in perverse and negative ways. The models currently being employed are simply not capable of bettering cities, making them more livable, more just places. Rather, the autocratic imposition of these events requires a restructuring of “democratic norms” in order to facilitate the transfer of public wealth to private hands. These are lost opportunities to implement projects that would bring lasting and not short term benefits.

These events need a massive restructuring, a dose of humility, and should attend to the demands of the places in which they are held. As it is, they are ever-larger, require ever-more public funds, and re-shape spaces and places to meet the exigencies of international sport federations and their corporate partners while stimulating real-estate speculation and re-enforcing false notions of “progress” and “social development”. Of course, the massive outlay of public money for these events is going to generate benefits, employment opportunities, and improvements in transportation, communication, etc. But shouldn’t these projects have long-term urban and social planning as their foundation? It is likely that without the events that the political consensus necessary for such a massive outlay would never be possible. However, the opportunity costs are extreme and rarely measured, if only because it is difficult to do so. But considering that the Brazilian federal government just cut R$50 billion from the education budget while it is projecting to spend at least R$60 billion on mega-events indicates that these costs are real and worth considering. 

Mobility, Death, Stadiums, Strikes: Normalcy

GEOSTADIA MILESTONE: 25,000 HITS!!!! 120 Countries!!! Thanks everyone!

Good news first – there is a plan to extend the Metrô across the bay to Niterói and São Gonçalo. The linha 3 project video link is here and is a much, much, much needed improvement in metropolitan mobility. No timeline has been set, but at least the state government has recognized the impossibility of transporting tens of thousands of people across a narrow bridge. There will even be a stop at the Universidade Federal Fluminense. Holding one’s breath for this project to be completed is not recommended.

Bad news. Really bad news. The quaint and picturesque bonde that shuttles people around Santa Teresa has had yet another accident. Remember that last year a bonde collided with a bus, crushing a woman to death. Last month a French tourist fell to his death off the aqueduct in Lapa. Ten days ago, five people died instantly and more than fifty were injured when the bonde brakes failed on its way down the hill. In most places in the world a major transportation line killing a handful of people and critically injuring others would be a major and permanent scandal – especially when the secretary of transportation blames the dead conductor instead accepting any kind of responsibility when only 7% of the maintenance budget had been spent. Apparently, instead of using nuts and bolts to secure the brakes, something else was used as a temporary fix. Rumor has it that instead of replacing the wheels of the trams with the same size, used wheels from the SuperVia trains were put on and these were perhaps too large for the bonde tracks. Who knows? What we do know is that the total disregard for public safety inevitably led to the evitable deaths of five people. There are some criticisms being launched in the proper directions but no real outrage, no one demanding the Governor’s head on a platter. The Transportation Secretary retained his post despite massive evidence of incompetence.

That there was a disaster waiting to happen is evidenced in this video that shows the bonde heading downhill against traffic.

More ridiculous news coming out of the Ministério do Esporte. The MoS, responsible for the governance of all sport in Brazil, paid R$6.2 million to register soccer fans. The money was delivered, the project never was. The problem is not only in that the project was not carried off or that the company hired to do it pocketed the money (at least temporarily) but that it never should have been considered in the first place. The Brazilian government has consistently and incrementally implemented a policy of criminalizing all football fans, but especially those who are members of the torcidas organizadas. The “registration” of torcidas organizadas is another step along the way to the hyper-surveillance of all fans and curiously one that the torcidas of Rio de Janeiro are willing to accept. For those interested in the minutiae of Brazilian football culture, the torcidas of Rio e Janeiro are the only torcidas in Brazil that are not affiliated with the national association. I’ll save the explanation for another post.

Not surprisingly, and as I predicted here, there is a shortage of qualified labor for the 2016 Olympic projects. It is a very good time to be a civil engineer in Brazil. The shortage of labor is being used as a justification by the Olympic Organizing Committee to elevate the salaries of the personnel that they already have under contract. This will also necessitate the imporation of more expensive experts from abroad, so those of you thinking of making the jump to Brazil , come on in, the water’s lovely, although you’re still likely to get your electronic goods stolen on the street (an Italian friend of mine was robbed twice yesterday, the second attempt, obviously, not as fruitful as the first as there was nothing left, coitados).

The general strike at the Maracanã continues! There was a brief resolution last week, but all work has stopped again and the Consorcio Maracanã (Odebrecht, Delta and Carioca) is making no attempt to re-start negotiations with the union. One of the major complaints of the workers is that they were being served rotten food and that even after the last round of negotiations, the food provider was not changed. There are likely two sides to this story, maybe even three, but serving rotten food to one’s workers is certainly not in the best interests of the nation. Come on Dilma, get your petit-bourgeois party back to the left it left ten years ago!

After strikes at the Maracanã and Minerão, threats of striking in Cuiabá, there is now the possibility of a strike at the Fonte Nova in Salvador. Salvage capitalism meets head to head with relatively strong syndicalism! Drama total!

In case you thought that no one in the government was watching what is going on with these insanely inflated budgets, the Tribunal das Contas Da União (TCU) identified some price inflation in the Maracanã project. The official cost is now around R$859 million, or R$11.300 per seat. By contrast, the new privately financed Grêmio stadium in Porto Alegre will only cost R$6.600 per seat and Palmerias’ Palestra Italia stadium in São Paulo will privately finance 45.000 at R$6.670 per seat. Corinthians’ publically financed stadium in São Paulo will cost at least R$12.000 per seat.  Lesson: where public money and post-Cup privatization contracts are happening, the pigs are at the trough. Where the private sector is involved, costs are much lower. Does this mean that all the WC stadiums should be privately financed? No. But it does mean that there is a pervasive culture of getting hands in the till as often and as deeply as possible and that there is little or no control over public spending in the pursuit of mega-event legacies [sic].