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

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.

Rio de Janeiro, August 2011

This city is absolutely bonkers. The flow of information and the rate of change and exchange are overwhelming. This is counterbalanced by the mind-boggling geology and the historical trajectory of Brazil. Nothing new, I suppose, just saying.

Real-estate markets are booming. Since October 2009, when the Olympics were announced, prices have more than doubled across the city. Where UPPs have been installed, rates of accretion are much higher. There is a migration of foreign dollars and foreigners into the Olympic City and a migration of locals to the periphery. The currency is overvalued, we appear to be living in some kind of bubble but in a country mired in centuries of bureauctaric inefficiency the structural changes are slow in coming which may, ironically, save Brazil from the depredations being suffered in certain European and North American countries.

Three new transportation lines are getting crammed through the city of Rio without any democratic process or access to information, tens of thousands of people will be forcibly displaced with tens of billions of public funds while the metropolitan transportation plan continues to not exist. BRT é crime.

Last week, someone realized that he had taken the wrong bus but ended up on the Rio-Niteroi bridge. His attempt to get to the other side was woefully unsuccessful and his premature death caused a 12km traffic jam. People desperate to get to work flooded onto the ferry, which has recently reduced service. There are no plans to create more effective links across the bay. The Metrô doesn’t go to either airport and there are no plans to link the two.

It frequently takes more than an hour to leave the campus of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, which also has no Metrô service. Two weeks ago, my excellent though crazy bus driver solved the puzzle by jumping a median, doing a u-turn and going the wrong way on a two lane road for about 3km, altering the bus’ normal route to go through the airport and then taking another u-turn to head south again. A brilliant move, but really? Those not as fortunate literally waited three hours. There is an entire traffic jam industry with people walking between lines of stopped cars selling snacks and drinks. There are massive stretches of highway that people avoid for fear of assault or the predictable insanity of Rio’s notorious traffic. Some days, the advertising section for cars in OGlobo is larger than the news section. Did I mention that there is no map of Rio's bus system, no way to tell when a certain bus is going to pass a certain point or where it will take you from there?

On Wednesday morning a group of foreign and Brazilian workers were followed from their hotel by two cars. At a certain point on the elevated highway their vans were stopped by 8 machine-gun wielding men who mistakenly robbed the Brazilians and not the gringos. The police are going to come to work a few minutes earlier now, as the assault happened before the shift started. The week before last, a bus was hijacked in front of City Hall. After the bus driver jumped out the calmest dude in the bus was forced to drive on until the Military Police shot out the tires. In the standoff, there was some shooting in which six people were wounded. All of the bullets found in the bus and in the people came from the Military Police. But don’t worry, these very same police are training to rappel down from stadium roofs in the case that someone gets the bright idea to attack a stadium full of people (which to my knowledge has never happened in the history of sport).

I took the following picture this week, there was no one around. This city is also incredibly calm and beautiful.

Yesterday, the Movement of Homeless Workers occupied the Ministry of Sport building in Brasilia demanding an end to the forced removal of people from their homes in preparation for the World Cup and Olympics. Their estimate is that at least 70 thousand people have been forcibly removed already.

In Niterói, a judge who had taken a very hard line against police corruption was shot 21 times as she parked her car in front of her house. She had received multiple death threats, had asked for police protection that was refused, and was about to sentence a high-ranking member of Niterói’s PM. All of the bullets found in the car and in her body belonged to the PM of Niterói. The news was published above the fold in Oglobo, but below were smaller articles detailing her past and present amorous relationships with police, as if these relationships were somehow complicit in her death. Common sense in Rio has is that “she was asking to be killed” as she had perhaps forgotten her place or did not understand that there are certain social and structural conventions (such as milicias being taken on by uppity female judges) that should not be messed with. Despite Carnaval and some progressive social policies, Brazil is a very conservative country.

The city finally took down the fences that surrounded the Praça Tiradentes in the center of town. It looks great. Fences around public space area sign that the government fears the public. Let’s hope they continue to make improvements like this to all of Rio’s plazas and not just those that come under the gaze of foreign architecture firms (and/or graduate programs in Architecture).

The Olympic Park Project is going to be very, very interesting and a big challenge. The project is handicapped by the location which doesn’t lend itself to integrated urbanism, but will certainly provide an opportunity for longitudinal studies into the ways in which discursive Olympism meets up with the actual needs of the cities in which the Games occur. The technical production of the project is amazing, though in the official release we are given a very limited geographic perspective (south-east to north-west) of the project as a whole. However, from the looks of it, the majority of the Vila Autódromo will be saved. El Principe did not want to comment about that.

This weekend, all of the torcidas organizadas in the entire country – with the exception of those in Rio de Janeiro (who are not integrated into the national federation of torcidas organizadas because they have a somewhat cozier relationship with the existing power structures) – will protest against Ricardo Teixeira’s reign at the CBF. The movement Fora Ricardo Teixeira has gained tens of thousands of supporters throughout Brazil. The ANT-RJ will be brining the fight to the mean streets of the Fechadão prior to Vasco x Framengo this Sunday and ANT-SP will be doing the same. There is significant attention being drawn to the endemic corruption at the CBF and FIFA. No less a figure than Romário, Brazil’s great striker of the 1990s and now a federal deputy, has launched criticisms in the direction of the 2014 World Cup saying that completing promises made to FIFA without respecting human rights and national laws simply will not be tolerated.  This is an important figure saying important things that are going against the prevailing tide. It’s not too late to do things right.