Rio trouble: Is Brazil ready for kick-off?

Two years ago I flew into London from Rio to find a city snarling at the prospect of hosting the Olympic Games. Everything was wrong: the special traffic lanes for the dignitaries, the high-handed behaviour of the IOC… And then the Olympic torch started taking its trip around the various boroughs and the atmosphere began to change. A feeling of belonging was forged, Londoners started to feel that the Games were theirs — an impression that appeared to be shared by almost the entire nation after Danny Boyle’s wonderfully quirky opening ceremony.

Fast-forward two years, and FIFA and the Brazilian authorities are hoping that something similar will happen with the much-criticised 2014 World Cup. Last year, during the Confederations Cup (a test event held 12 months ahead of the real thing), Brazil’s government declared itself perplexed as tens of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest about public spending on a football tournament. FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke has even confessed that there was a moment when the suspension of the Confederations Cup was considered — a move that would have placed the World Cup in doubt.

The protest movement has not gone away, especially in Rio. I live quite close to the palace of the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, an obvious target. Over the past few months my flat in Flamengo, a relatively safe middle-class neighbourhood, has given me a grandstand view of clashes between the police and (mainly) young, masked protesters. The pepper spray used by the police has drifted up through my eighth-floor window, sending my dog frantic.

Recent protests, though, have been relatively small. In mid-May there was a day of action against the World Cup in a number of cities. These always come up with photogenic images: a protester in a Guy Fawkes mask setting fire to a World Cup sticker album; a six-metre replica of the trophy being burned; or a group of indigenous people demanding land rights climbing on to the roof of the Brazilian Congress building. But the turnout was nothing like the mass demonstrations of last year — a thousand here, a few hundred there.

The real trophy, meanwhile, is making its way around the country and drawing huge crowds wherever it goes. People want to be part of the event; something that was already clear from the strength of the ticket sales — over 60 per cent have been bought by Brazilians.

The scenario, then, is fascinatingly contradictory and it is not hard to understand why. In normal circumstances, the World Cup is the time when Brazil is the country that everyone envies — they win more than anyone else, and they do it in style. This gives the tournament a huge importance in Brazilian society. It is worth remembering that average crowds in the Brazilian first division are lower than those in Major League Soccer in the US. But the World Cup mobilises and obsesses millions of Brazilians who, on a day-to-day basis, have little interest in the game. My girlfriend is one; at Christmas she asked for a Brazil shirt that she could wear while cheering on her national team, but at the moment she is reluctant to wear it when she goes for her morning run, scared that it might get her into conflict with a protester. Even the Brazil team are not immune. A couple of weeks ago, they assembled in Rio to drive to their base in the hills outside the city; their bus was surrounded by protesters.

Hosting the World Cup has had consequences that were not foreseen a few years ago. The process has been deeply flawed: there was an absurd delay in defining the host cities and for years there was no government involvement on the Local Organising Committee (LOC) — an astonishing lapse in an event with such implications for the public purse. Plans for Brazil 2014 were behind the clock from the start, which means that the price of what can be done (ie, the stadiums) goes up, while the scope of what can be done goes down; many of the urban transport projects, where society theoretically had most to gain from staging the tournament, have been delayed, scaled down or quietly abandoned.

The people, quite naturally, feel betrayed. All sorts of promises were made — that all the money spent on stadiums would be from private sources, for example — that look ridiculous in hindsight. There was no mature debate about what the country really wanted to achieve from staging the tournament and how much it was prepared to pay to achieve it. The support of the population was cynically taken for granted. All of this came back to bite the authorities when the protest movement flared up — initially, it is important to note, over the issue of public transport. The connection was then swiftly made between deficiencies in this and other areas of public provision and the amount being spent on the impressive new stadiums. The slogan of the movement became ‘FIFA standard’: if the Brazilian state — albeit with delays and at inflated costs — could build FIFA-standard stadiums, then why not FIFA-standard transport, health and education?

In the past few days there has even been criticism from those inside the organisational process. The great Ronaldo, the World Cup’s all-time top scorer, declared himself ‘ashamed’ of the image that Brazil is sending to the world — and he is on the LOC. LOC director Joana Havelange, granddaughter of the former FIFA president João Havelange, shared a text on her Instagram account stating that the money ‘spent, or robbed’ on the World Cup had already gone, and that the time for protesting would be later this year at the elections. The fact that Brazil goes to the polls in October adds extra spice to the situation; opposition candidates will be trying to channel dissatisfaction with the World Cup into votes.

The economic boom of the past few years has raised confidence and expectations, as well as worsening the transport problem, since more people buy cars and public provision lags horribly behind. A new generation have emerged who have seen plenty of changes in their lifetime; they know change is possible and they want more of it, and quickly. They have also travelled abroad for the first time and many have been disappointed by the fact that their nationality brings instant references to football and carnival. They are looking for other symbols of representation.