How The 2014 FIFA World Cup Became The Worst Publicity Stunt In History

Back in 2007, when Brazil was awarded the right to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the South American nation was experiencing its best economic period in decades. That year Brazil’s economy expanded by 4.5%, thanks to capital flowing into the country from foreign investors. Inflation was under control and the currency strong.  And the gap between the rich and the poor finally seemed to be shrinking a bit. The country of the future was, at last, catching up with its vast potential.

Fast-forward to May 2014: consumer confidence has plummeted, and the economy contracted in consecutive quarters (from Q4 2013 to Q1 2014) for the first time since the depths of the 2008-09 global financial crisis, and about two weeks prior to hosting the biggest single-event sporting extravaganza on earth, Brazil is in the midst of a degree of chaos that in no way resembles the image of the country that was sold by its leaders to the world seven years ago.

Demonstrators during a protest against the 2014 World Cup, in Brasilia (PHOTO: Gustavo Froner/REUTERS)

So, what went wrong?

Part of the blame can be attributed to former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, whose own megalomania and ambition set him up for what could become his worst political moment. Certainly the most popular politician in Brazil by a mile, Lula da Silva personally lobbied for the World Cup to be held in Brazil for the sake of showing the world how much of a superpower Brazil can be. Truth be told, many Brazilians celebrated that idea when it was first presented, and only recently have changed their mood.

Such ambition is not strange to political leaders and their people. However Lula da Silva forgot that the best way to showcase a country’s growing capabilities, stature and confidence is by giving its citizens more social, economic and political freedom (Mexico did a much better job doing that and is on its way to overtake Brazil as Latin America’s largest economy by 2022). He chose instead to team up on behalf of his countrymen with one of the world’s allegedly most corrupt organizations to set up an event that in its original budget already cost billions, but ended up consuming even more of taxpayers’ money.

The most conservative estimates put at $11.7 billion the total investments by the government on the World Cup, US$4 billion alone on 12 new and refurbished stadiums, more than three times the cost initially projected and the most expensive World Cup ever, largely due to fraud and suspicious ties between politicians and contractors.

Even a member of Brazil’s World Cup organizing committee sparked controversy Tuesday by telling protesters angry over the tournament budget that the money had already been spent or stolen. “I want the World Cup to go off as well as possible,” Joana Havelange, the daughter of the powerful former head of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) Ricardo Teixeira, protested on her Instagram profile. “I’m not going to fight against it, as however much was spent, stolen, already has been,”  she wrote. “If it was necessary to protest (at the spiralling cost of the event) then people should have done so beforehand,” Havelange said in the post, which was later deleted.

What’s worse: some of these stadiums may not even be ready for the tournament, let alone the enormous infrastructure projects that were sold to Brazilians as a benefit of hosting the World Cup that are yet to leave paper — a bullet train between Rio and Sao Paulo promised in 2009 to be ready for the World Cup is now projected for 2020.

Since it rose to power in 2002, Brazil’s Workers’ Party has been using propaganda in various forms to push the idea that its governance style has changed Brazil for the better. But despite recent improvements, Brazil is still one of the world’s most unequal countries, and its poorest citizens are the ones paying the biggest share of their income in tax and also the ones getting the least back from government spending. No wonder why some of them are taking to the streets to protest.

The whole idea of hosting the World Cup was, in fact, seen by the leaders of the Workers’ Party and other allied parties as the pièce de résistance to illustrate the changes they have been propogating as miraculous. The disconnect with real life is what has caused the anger of so many Brazilians, and a decision by Federal Prosecutors to ask a court to suspend the airing of government advertisements touting the benefits that the World Cup will bring to Brazil, saying the ads are “absurdly divorced from reality.”

Public opinion polls have shown a steady erosion of enthusiasm for the event among Brazilians. In 2008, the year after Brazil was announced as World Cup host, 79% of respondents to a Datafolha poll supported the event. By April this year, the number was 48%. The same poll this year showed 55% of respondents saying the event will bring more harm than good to Brazilians.

“I hope Brazil loses in the first round,” Maria de Lourdes, 39, a street vendor who participated in a recent anti-World Cup demonstration, told USA Today. She said the Brazilian team falling early would make locals lose their nationalistic goodwill toward the event. “Brazil, with all its problems, Rio with all its problems — many people still die from hunger while others are spending money on these games,” she said.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has already manifested his worries on Brazil’s capability of hosting the World Cup. “If this happens again we have to question whether we made the wrong decision awarding the hosting rights,” Blatter told German press agency DPA when asked about the social protests that took place in Brazil during last year’s Confederations Cup, a warm-up tournament for the World Cup.

The World Cup will be held as scheduled in Brazil, but certainly not without security problems. It will also be marked not as another chance for Brazil to win a sixth world title, but as an opportunity for Brazilians to remember their leaders who are in charge of things, especially considering that the World Cup could cause some impact in the upcoming October presidential election.

Lula da Silva wanted to show the world how much of a force Brazil is. He just never realized he could take the heat for it.