Lightning Counterattack

From Brazil, FIFA President Sepp Blatter flew to Turkey to open the under-20 World Cup. As his private jet was taking off, he boldly threw $100 million at the Brazilians, saying that the money would be used for some kind of social fund. The absurdity should be apparent, but if it isn’t, allow me to spell it out. If FIFA is so worried about their profits that they refuse to pay taxes, require duty free shopping on a continental scale and don’t have to open their accounts to public scrutiny, they why don’t they think twice about throwing out US$100 million? As I reported here some time ago, if FIFA were to actually pay their volunteer Brazilian labor force minimum wage (which is not, of course, adequate), the wage bill would only be around US$ 7 million. Why not take that US$100 million, invest in education, language training and actual projects rather than let it flutter down out of the sky into the dark corners of congress? Really, R$1 for every Brazilian as a return on our R$30 billion investment is pretty disgusting.

In other disgusting news, the Xaracana consortium has decided to ban every item and practice of Brazilian football culture. There will be no more large flags, banners or musical instruments. Fans will be prohibited from smoking or taking their shirts off. Swearing might become a criminal offense. They might even replace the referee with a robot and have drones determine offside calls. The head of the Xaracana S.A. has explicitly stated the obvious (which sometimes people need to get the ideas more completely in their heads) that there needs to be a “change in the type of fan” that goes to the stadium. This is consistent with all of the other World Cup venues. The cheapest ticket for the upcoming Vasco x Flu classic is R$60. The average ticket price to see Vasco x Flamengo in Brasilia last weekend was R$70. The 5.860 people that saw Santos x Portuguesa @ Santos paid an average of R$29. Tchau Neymar.

The continued absence of Brazil’s torcidas organizadas both in the protests and in relation to the stadium projects is as disheartening as it is revealing. Contrary to the ultras in Egypt and Turkey that have long been politicized and are pushing for social change (see James Dorsey’s amazing blog), in the Brazilian case, the torcidas have done nothing. They are perhaps so compromised by their dependency on the clubs to maintain their little pockets of power and so unable to overcome their long-standing rivalries with other clubs to unite for a common cause that they are impotent actors in a very complicated economic and political chess game. Their collective inability to politicize their own involvement in Brazil’s football world has greatly weakened their own position and been a loss for Brazilian civil society. This trend may be reversing itself with the statement of the Força Jovem do Vasco regarding the Xaracana, but it is the only such position that I have come across.

In case things in Rio weren`t difficult enough, here comes the Nope to really bungle things up. Not only is he bringing millions of McDonald’s eating adolescents, he’s brining 3 full holidays, shutting own traffic everywhere and substituting the rubber bullets of the Military Police with the live ammunition of the Brazilian Military. Yup, if you try to get within 13 kilometers of the site of the big mass in the west of Rio (not coincidentally, a site owned by one of Rio’s wealthiest who is having it fixed up nicely so that it can then be subdivided), you just might get your head blown off. The city is being progressively occupied by the military and of course they all want to behave like Rio's PM. Chega de evento. 

Fortunately, it is another lovely day in Rio. The sun is shining, the sewage is flowing into the bay, two and half million Catholics + the Pope will be sharing their personal effluence with us and we have three major holidays coming up! Bring on the Copa when we will have the entire month off. Put that in your economic return multiplier and smoke it. 

Guilty, as not charged (volenti non fit iniuria)

To the chagrin of fans of justice everywhere it seems as if Ricardo Teixeira and João Havelange will shuffle off this mortal coil not having served a single hour in prison. Having read through the Canton of Zug’s judicial findings, I can report that the scandal is almost too scandalous. The 15 shades of details are too juicy not to share, so in what follows I provide some quotes from the document that more or less weave the story together. If you are pressed for time, here’s the summary:

Criminal proceedings against former CBF front man Texeira, ex-FIFA boss Havelange and FIFA itself for mismanagement, embezzlement and institutionalized bribery were dropped. All of these charges were documented vis a vis bank statements and contracts dealing with the marketing rights for the World Cups in 2002 and 2006 (among other things). The good Andrew Jennings has profiled these crimes in detail. The court ruled not to continue with prosecution, but considered the defendants guilty because they made partial repayment of the bribes they had received. The logic here: if they weren’t guilty, why would they have given back some of the money? This money was taken in bribes to award World Cup broadcast rights to ISL, a now defunct marketing company. At the end of the day, these criminals took bribes, made millions and then had to pay back a fraction in order to stop further prosecution, thereby stopping the investigation through a sideways admission of guilt. Along the way, they managed to come up with some defensive gems worthy of Michelle Prudhomme.  

From the Swiss Canton of Zug:

Ricardo Terra Texeira unlawfully used assets entrusted to him for his own personal enrichment several times. These commissions, which Ricardo Terra Texeira received due to his position in FIFA, were pocketed by him (for his own use), and he failed to disclose or hand over the payments to FIFA.

Joao Havelange unlawfully used assets entrusted to him for his own enrichmentseveral times. He acted with intent to enrich himself unlawfully.

 FIFA is accused of having a deficient organization in its enterprise

Blatter escapes responsibility:

The new provisions of the statute of limitations are, in principle, only applicable, with reservations for certain exceptions, if the criminal offence was committed after they came into force.

With  this, current president Blatter gets to wiggle his way out of things. FIFA released the most ridiculous interview I can remember, where Blatter had 5 very difficult questions put to him by the FIFA press office and published the responses on the website. Follow this link for a laugh. Ignorance is profitable bliss, ‘cuz you just ran out of time, biatch!

“concerning the question of a possible unlawful enrichment under a legal limitation of time aspect are obsolete. October 1, 2003, and thus FIFA cannot be criminally liable for acts carried out prior to this date.”

This witty riposte dealt with one of the off-side traps pulled by the Texeira-Havelange legal team:

The federal court rejected the argument that the assumption that the requirement to deliver had been waived suggested that corresponding agreements were customary (FCD 132 III 466,consid. 4.3). Customs may play a role in assessing the mental elements of an offence, however not when determining whether a duty to disclose or to surrender possession exists.

The defendants had argued that they did not have to return the bribe payments because in Africa and South America, bribing is a “customary” way of doing business. Not to have accepted bribes as part of the contract would not only have been bad form, it would have unduly cheated them of their rightful income. This is a lesson that has been well learned by Brazil Worker’s Party, that has in turn instructed the rest of us that corruption generates impunity.

A related argument for keeping the money was that there was not need to return the bribes to FIFA because FIFA would have had to surrender them to the Swiss bankruptcy court that dealt with the failure of ISL marketing (which had paid the bribes). Thus, it couldn’t be argued that the president and vice-president of FIFA had harmed the organization by taking money destined for it. Genius.

The news coming out of FIFA these days is that they are hotfooting it to institute some reforms. This week they appointed an independent ethics team to tell the fat vats at FIFA how to behave.

This is the crack team they hand-picked for the task (we’ll try to find out more about the massive experience that Messers. Torres, Jones and Abderrahmane bring to the table from their respective homelands):

Appointment of the following persons as members of the investigatory chamber of the Ethics Committee until the 63rd FIFA Congress in 2013:

Chairman: Michael J Garcia (USA)

Mr Robert Torres (Guam)

Mr Les Murray (Australia)

Mr Ronald Jones (Barbados)

Mr Jorge Iván Palacio (Colombia)

Mr Noël Le Graët (France)

Mr Ahmed Ould Abderrahmane (Mauritania)

One of the reasons is that FIFA promised to do something about the institutional corruption and incompetence, which made them liable for the lunatics creating their own asylum is the Zug court’s finding that:

If a felony or misdemeanor is committed in an enterprise while exercising a business activity

within the scope of the enterprise and if, due to the deficient organization of the enterprise, the

act cannot be attributed to a natural person, then according to Art. 102 para. 1 PC, the act will

be attributed to the enterprise. In such case, the enterprise can be liable for a fine of up to 5

million francs.

5 million Francs to FIFA is bus fare.

With all the evidence mounted against them, we see the cleverness of the slippery, criminal mastermind at work:

Both for FIFA, Ricardo Terra Texeira and Joao Havelange, the fruits of criminal acts have to be discounted if there can never be the subject of a conviction due to the application of the statute of limitations and/or because they cannot be conclusively attributed to one Accused or the other.

This is the same way that the World Cup institutional architecture is constructed. No one has ultimate responsibility for anything, thus everyone is responsible for nothing, so anything at all can happen.

In the end, nothing more is going to happen to these crooks, but their names have been tarnished. Here is the naïve report by the Swiss judge:

It does not seem to be necessary to impose an unsuspended sentence in order to prevent the Accused from committing further felonies or misdemeanors. The current proceedings, the psychological stress connected therewith and ultimately also the surrender of not unconsiderable tangible assets should in future prevent the Accused from undermining the purposes of an association that is so clearly committed to activities that unite different peoples. If this finding applies to Ricardo Terra Texeira, then it is even more so the case with regard to Joao Havelange. This is not least of all due to his status as a retired person, which he has been for quite some time, and his advanced age, which will almost certainly preclude a criminal act.

And finally, the icing that should be written on a cake the size of Pão de Açucar:

It must be noted that none of the accused parties explicitly acknowledged a breach of the law; however, this finding is put in perspective by the fact that reparation has been paid in the amount of millions of francs, which can be considered as an implied confession of criminal conduct.

GUILTY, AS NOT CHARGED!!!!

Kicks in the Arse

Last week, Jerome Valcke finally said what we know to be true regarding Brazil’s World Cup preparations – “they need a kick in the ass”. Nonplussed, the Minister of Sport replied that the Brazilian government would no longer deal with Mr. Valcke as an interlocutor. Irritated, Valcke called the Brazilian reaction “puerile” adding that Brazil appeared to be more interested in winning the world cup than hosting it. Sadly for the Brazilians, there doesn’t seem to be much chance of that either.

At the same time, the CBF gathered together the whimpering dogs of the 26 state football federations at the feet of Ricardo Teixeira. Tricky Ricky left the meeting with his power intact. Faced with allegations of international money laundering, receiving bribes, and other malfeasances, Mr. Jowls has an amazing ability to hold on to the reigns of Brazilian football. Let’s not forget that this is the first time that the president of a national football federation is also the president of the World Cup organizing committee. How Teixeira has kept afloat is beyond me.

During Lula’s good-ol-boy government, Teixeira had some solid political coverage. Dilma has changed things somewhat, refusing to meet with him. The president of FIFA has worked to distance himself from this dough-faced dandy leaving a politically isolated figure that somehow convinced the presidents of Brazil’s federations to prop him up through 2014. As I mentioned a post or two ago, I think that FIFA was waiting to see what happened in this meeting to determine what they were going to do with the documents from the ISL money-laundering case. Does FIFA delay releasing the ISL documents in order to preserve the World Cup in Brazil as they look for plan B?

No one has ultimate responsibility for anything related to the 2014 World Cup but that does not mean there aren’t things that need to be done. FIFA cannot be wholly blamed for the stadium cost overruns or transportation projects or the choice of 12 cities across a continent with shoddy airports and no ground transportation. They have a series of demands that they “need” met in order to extract the maximum amount of money in the shortest time frame. FIFA is a pimp for global capital interests, using the World Cup as the emotionally charged smack that blinds us to the accumulation of power and profit. The Brazilian government (at all levels) has used the World Cup preparations as a nominal way to “improve” cities but has repeatedly stepped on the ball in all the ways that I have documented over the last few years. Rio de Janeiro could not, today, handle the World Cup. Other than the completion of the destructive destruction of the Maracanã will that much really change?

With all of this infantile bickering, instead of focusing on the 12 White Elephants, forced removals, idiotic transportation projects, unnecessary hotels, the lack of inter-city transport, the privatization of airports, security, public space, and the massive transfer of public wealth, the media can pay attention to whether or not beer should be allowed in the stadiums or split hairs about whether or not 20,000 indigenous people will be able to watch South Korea x. Slovakia in Manaus. The issues really have nothing to do with Brazil’s ability to build stadia or media centers or airports, but what kind of society is being constructed, how, and for whom.

From a logistical perspective, FIFA is rightly chafed about the delays in everything. This process began four and a half years ago and the legal foundation is still being poured. The Brazilian government is overreacting to FIFA, launching bombast when a more sober consideration of real issues would help. There are major and massive issues to be resolved. Without the legal framework in place, there is nothing that FIFA can do. Without a working relationship between FIFA, the Local Organizing Committee, and the three levels of Brazilian government, this month long party won’t happen. The government isn’t talking to their partners and the communication between FIFA and the CBF/LOC is fractious. I am sure that Valcke and Blatter have thought on more than one occasion: USA 2014. 

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?

The Good News

I would like to write about all of the good news related to the top-down installation of mega-events but am having trouble finding any. It’s pretty clear that one has to look at the micro-level to see anything positive as the recent FIFA embarrassments were given a healthy scrubbing by the IOC. It is a sad day indeed at FIFA house when Jacque Rogge has to come across the country to give the IOC’s five fingered seal of approval. The despicable shenanigans at FIFA are nothing new. On the bright side the swirling corruption claims may have opened up a corner of the black box, potentially ushering in a call for change. On the other hand, 186 of the 208 member associations voted for Herr Blatter in the uncontested election. FIFA runs on a fear-based economy and the national associations act like sniveling sycophants.

In Rio, the installation of mega-event infrastructures is happening at various paces. The Maracanã is dead, and the process of creating the Novo Maracanã has to wait until the roof is taken off the old stadium. There’s no real hurry, as long as the stadium is ready six months before the World Cup, no one will much care. The budget for the stadium has already tripled from the initial projections in 2009. My estimate is that the Novo Maracanã project will cost 2 BILLION REAIS (US$1.25 b).

View of the deceased Maracanã from Parque Nacional da Tijuca, June 5, 2011

The average monthly salary for a fireman (bombeiro) in Rio de Janeiro state is R$950. No surprise then that the Rio Bombeiros took collective action to demand improvements in salary and working conditions. They invaded their own headquarters last week, occupying their place of work in order to negotiate with the government. The governor’s reaction: send in BOPE (the black hooded killing squad that usually invades favelas). The scenes were as lamentable as they were preventable; children getting tear gassed, police forcing public servants to the ground with machine guns, massive arrests, general jack-booted thuggery. The governor has no problem spending billions on a stadium that was already functioning but when essential public services like firemen as for a raise he sends in a death-squad.

The stories coming out of the Zona Portuaria, Jacarepaguá and the Zona Oeste are equally discouraging. The SMH, municipal housing secretary, continues to use the most incredible tactics to remove people from their houses. The stories defy belief. The jist is that the SMH, at the behest of the mayor, is denying communities the right to collectively bargain, arriving in some cases with unmarked bags of cash and handing thousands of R$ to people who may have never seen that much money before. In other cases they force children to sign documents in the name of their parents. In other cases they simply intimidate, in others they deliberately deceive and mis-represent. The asymmetry of information is complete. The very threat of forced removal is a form of terror that violates basic human rights. Even with a very powerful telescope, Jacque Rogge and the IOC couldn’t see these things happening from Mount Olympus.

The Brazilian national team is back in country for the first time in a long time, playing a series of friendlies leading up to the Copa América. There was a poor performance against Holland in Goiânia the other day. However, the Goiânians were so well behaved that the CBF promised them that they would be able to host games for the 2015 Copa America. Hold on. We are constructing 12 new stadiums for the World Cup, none of which are in Goiânia. In fact, the only reason that the seleção played there was because all of the major stadiums in Brazil are under construction. Of course the Copa América won’t be played in Manaus, Curitiba, Natal, or Cuiabá, because no one would go. Why are those cities building World Cup Stadia?

ANT-SP is organizing a protest against the CBF and their absurd and corrupt regime for the seleção’s game against Romania at the Pacaembú in São Paulo. The cheapest ticket is R$140 and for a seat it’s R$800. The game will, naturally, start after the novellas on Tuesday night at 9:50pm. So by the time the game is over the metro will have stopped and the bus service diminished. In Rio, Super Via managed to provide special trains to bring people from the Zona Sul to the Enenhão for the Paul McCartney concert last week, but insist that they can do nothing about the over-crowded, un-air-conditioned cars that sometimes make it to their final destination, much less provide special cars to get people to the Engenhão for a football match.  

As I have mentioned in innumerable posts and interviews, the installation of mega-events in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro allows for the acceleration of the deployment of neo-liberal tactics of governance. States and cities of exception produce highly territorialized and militarized spaces of exclusion where democratic and human rights are available to those who can afford them. As Mirelles (head of the Public Olympic Authority and former Central Bank head) said the other day, “the Olympics are a symbol of the growth of the country”. This is undoubtedly true. But this growth is coming at a tremendous cost and mega-events, with all of their symbolic, cultural, and poltical powers, allow us to crystallize our thinking about the kind of society we want to develop. The good thing is that the Gestapo tactics of the government are showing what Brazilian “development” is really all about. This is helping social movements across the country to articulate in ways that might not have been possible without the events. Thus, the very things that are accelerating the implementation of rapacious regimes of capital accumulation through the deployment of jack-boots and surveillance cameras is also allowing for the contestation of those systems. The bad news is that tens of thousands of people are going to lose their homes, have their communities divided and dispersed, and have their children tear-gassed in the struggle for a living wage.