lucas_leobas

I can almost listen to what Juvenal Juvêncio (SPFC 130-year-old president)'s mind when he learnt that FIFA wanted good visibility in the lower tier so that FIFA could charge more for the tickets: "Ok, let's extend part of the tier so they can actually see the game and pay some extra. The rest of the stadium will still be crap though, no problem about that, right?". SPFC is determined to doing the minimum they possibly can and spend the lowest possible amount of money to get the opening game. Every private enterprenour wants that, so it doesn't come as a surprise. I just get staggered at how our state and municipal government doesn't give a damn.

Here's what's going on in São Paulo: we're not getting a public stadium. Our state government has other priorities and we can't blame them. Right now the public opinion seems to support such decision, but I think we may have a considerable backlash when it's announced that there will be no opening game or semifinals in the city. FIFA and São Paulo Futebol Clube (SPFC - Morumbi Stadium's owner) were getting along pretty well in the last few months. FIFA made it pretty clear that Morumbi Stadium needed changes in order to host important games in the WC and SPFC were accepting them and making changes to the project. GMP was hired, there were significant changes in the exterior project and the roof, not to mention a new building to be used as a parking lot. All FIFA's demands were taken by SPFC, except for one: the stands. Currently, the stands are far away from the pitch, with visibility problems in the two lower tiers, specially the lower one. FIFA wants such problems to be corrected, which could be made through the extension of the middle tier until the pitch or lowering of the field and extension of the lower tier. SPFC doesn't want to make such changes: it would affect their contracts with the owners of stores in the internal part of the stadium and bring a lot of extra expenditure. Their last project was a gem - partial extension of the middle tier: As previously explained by aluz, it is very important to FIFA that the visibility in the lower tiers is the best possible, since they are the most expensive tickets sold in a WC game. Up until this month, our media reported that SPFC knew that their project was far from ideal but intended to do anything FIFA asks in order to secure the hosting of the opening game. Until Feburary 9th, when there was a reunion between representants of all host cities and FIFA. SPFC representants said that FIFA gave them thumbs up with the project in their rendezvous. Jerome Valcke from FIFA read the news and was like "WTH?". He said São Paulo's project is only enough for games up to the Round of 16. Apparently there was a huge misunderstanding between them. Now both parties are in a he-said, she-said that will probably last at least one more week.

First of all, Sir Roltel seemed to have REALLY liked Watermelon Woman and all the rest of the fruit women. I love how we are getting bizarre versions of it: I just googled Mulher-Xtudão and wow! Great translation, Danny, by the way. Big Mac Woman sounds awesome . But I have bad news: Fruit women is very 2008 right now. Créu had a little revival in October with the whole "Yes we créu" fad, but now it's pretty much gone. "Watermelon Woman", however, is an expression that has gone into our pop culture and I'm pretty sure it'll be remembered for a whole generation, just like "Bootylicious" in America. I haven't been to the beach this summer to capture what are our lattest summer fads. Not that we need to be in the summer to go to the beach But I'll tell you guys as soon as I do it.

Everyone just loves a conspiratory plot. But, no, Catra, there is absolutely no evidence that Jerome Valcke may be advantaged in any way from the construction of a new stadium in São Paulo, Manaus or wherever. And saying that Mastercard questioned his fairplay does little to prove the opposite. He's just making sure that Brazil abide by the rules it accepted when chosen hosts of the World Cup. He's not making any absurd demands, or demands that aren't contained in FIFA's guidelines. I'm not going to discuss the rest of the post because this forum is not the place to discuss the concept of social justice.

Funny thing how outraged how some of you guys get once Jim Jones starts speaking about the developed countries, and then you start trying to belittle India in this thread. I've never got through one of his posts because he doesn't use commas, but I bet most of the facts stated by him are actually true. So it's not a matter of accuracy, but rather the way information is told. And I've seen a lot of disrespect towards India in the previous pages, by A LOT of people. I know 90% of the posts are just expressions of concern towards India's preparations to the CWG, but the other 10% can be really offensive to those that are out of the American-British-Australian-Mo click that seems to rule this forum and decide what's offensive and what's not.

Are baba, the stereotype is right!!! (sorry, this is an in-joke for telenovela-watching Brazilians - I know, ANOTHER stereotype )

wow, I didn't know Santiago had given up the organization of pretty much ALL multi-sports events they were awarded.

If we consider strictly the stadium aspect, I would say that Curitiba's situation is one of the most worrying. The project presented to FIFA would cost R$138 million. Now that they have been chosen as hosts, Atlético Parananse say that they will spend only R$38 million unless another private partner steps in or the government helps (which will obviously not happen). All in all, this isn't such a huge problem, since Curitiba will probably only receive first-phase games, and the stadium could be used as it is right now. So, this will not really happen: But of course Curitiba is a great city and deserves praises for the other aspects, specially transportation. Also, aluz, most bureaucracy problems such as project approval and necessary permits are already underway to most new stadiums. That is usually what takes up most time in Brazilian construction works. The lapse of time between the awarding of the procurement to one of the bidding companies and the beginning of the construction is usually not longer than 6 months. Today, good news: Cuiabá will hold the licitation to the construction of the Verdão stadium on November 25th - this will be a normal concession, not a PPP. Like I said, those cities that are not delusional about finding private partners will get things done faster.

This whole discussion about the Morumbi stadium is eclipsing all the other debates about the World Cup, but we have many other problems going on. I'm pretty sure at this point the Brasília will have the opening match and São Paulo will host until quarterfinals with a refurbished Morumbi. And, even if Brasília can't do it, we still have Maracanã. This is the least of our problems. The real problem is that the works have to start until March, and no public stadium has even published the calling announcement to the procurement/public-private partnerships (actually I think Salvador is the only one that has already done that). Even Rio de Janeiro, with the most potentially attractive stadium in Brazil has been considering to not look for private investors and get financing directly from BNDES, since they think no-one may be interested. But how could they expect anything different? Maracanã, as of today, profits R$3 million a year, for example. And the interested company would have to spend R$450 million with the reform, and then be granted a 35-year concession of the stadium. So, basically, they would have to quadruple the profits to BREAK EVEN. OF COURSE no one will be interested. I don't think it's feasible to believe that all stadiums will start to be built until March. Actually, right now, I believe that the only ones that will do are those that have assumed no money would come from private partners (Cuiabá, Manaus, Natal and BH). The other ones (Brasília, Rio(?), Salvador, Recife and Fortaleza) will still take some months to get around the idea that, well, no one will be interested.

1 - The current SPFC project is already too expensive: a R$250-million renovation to a stadium that only generates an annual profit of R$11 million is already overambitious. But what they are putting on the table is still not enough. The capacity is low and SPFC doesn't want to lower the stands in order to get them closer to the pitch. Not the mention the problems in the surroundings, that were only partially resolved in the last project amendment. There have been reports of people within the São Paulo committee supporting that the city gives up on hosting the opening match, because of not only the problems with the stadium: Which is a huge concern considering these will probably be the people in our presidency from 2011 to 2014.

I had never stopped to take a look at all the plans of the 2012 Olympic Games, and all I can say is these are going to be some HUGE games (for the good or for the bad). Like, Beijing Hugeness. I can't deny that it sounds crazy to me to spend so much money in venues that will be used for 2 weeks and then be dismantled (550 million pounds in that stadium? ), but I can say that, during those two weeks, we will have the Olympic Games in the most beautiful venues of the world. And that beautiful park will still be there. What an Olympic plan! Almost everything is concentrated in a single region of the city, and you can see so many venues in the same render...it's just breathtaking. And we will also have the best stadium of the world (Wembley) and probably the best Arena (O2 - from what I've seen in the Gymnastics World Championship, on TV), in the rest of the city. I'm absolutely impressed.

The Olympic race is over, now I can freely talk about all the World Cup organizational problems. 1 - As stated by aluz, Morumbi has many problems even with the new project, specially lack of space in its surroundings. It has been criticized over and over, and the Brazilian media likes to say that FIFA is blackmailing São Paulo into building a new white elephant. They're obviously just trying to make São Paulo comply with the FIFA rules, whose existence the committee was aware much before being awarded the WC. The question is if they're gonna get a free pass from FIFA like Berlin got in 2006, or if FIFA will actually play hardball and give the opening match to Brasilia or Belo Horizonte. I think all the criticism to the São Paulo project is deserved, and, if it hadn't been done, the project still would be this arremedo: 2 - The announcement of the opening city will be done after next year's World Cup, and Brasilia will only build that fancy stadium (in my opinion, the most beautiful project) if they host the opening match. They have already stated that they'll build a simple, 40,000-capacity stadium, with no roof, in case they're not awarded the opening match. But they have to start building it next March, and I don't know how they'll do that. 3 - The Public Attorney's Office of Natal has entered into court to paralyze the procurement process of the beautiful Arena das Dunas (Dunes Arena) project. Apparently, if the famous Brazilian bureaucracy was throughly respected, the stadium would start being built in 2037, so they skipped a few steps, like getting the municipal, the state, and the environmental approval to the construction. 4 - The federal government has announced a credit line of up to R$400 million reais (around US$220 million) to each city exclusively to the construction of stadia, and the same amount to the construction of infrastructure that were not included in the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC). The cities, especially Cuiabá and Porto Alegre, said that the amount of credit to the infrastructure is ridiculous (Cuiabá was expecting at least 2 billion reais). Cuiaba's mayor had a meeting in Brasília and he was guaranteed that there would be enough money to all cities.