Sao Paulo: Here in Sao Paulo the question hangs. Will Brazilians be for or against this World Cup?
At the Fifa-shaped stadium where the hosts will kick off the tournament against Croatia on Thursday, there was intense scurrying on a day when a court ruled that the current Metro strikes are illegal and threatened unions with a 100,000 Reals (Dh163,002) fine a day if they refused to return to work.
The convergence of fresh Fifa corruption allegations and the mad dash to stop the 2014 World Cup slipping into logistical chaos has rendered the Brazilian carnival far more complicated than anyone could have expected when the country was awarded the tournament for the first time since 1950.
All the myths and legends of Brazilian football were meant to dance on to the pitch and set the old love for football in a new context of miraculous economic transformation. Brazilians are the first people in World Cup history to object to football transferring huge sums from the public purse into the hands of corporations, stadium builders and Fifa, who are beset by scandal over Qatar 2022.
The citizens of Rio and Sao Paulo are the first to draw a direct connection between Fifa’s gigantism and overpriced public transport and inadequate schools and hospitals. Many view this World Cup as a ruse to redirect wealth from the poor to the rich and think it obscene that $3.47 billion (Dh12.74 billion) can be spent on football stadiums in a country peppered with favelas, or slums.
Brazilians are refusing to play the role of maraca-shaking, samba-dancing extras. And now they have a choice to make. Strikes and widespread demonstrations could yet paralyse this World Cup. Many will say that the blame would then lay with Fifa and the Brazilian government, who have used paramilitary police to “pacify” many favelas and preached the gospel of infrastructure transformation.
This week in Sao Paulo, half of all underground stations were closed and this vast city was close to gridlock as transport workers demanded a 10 per cent pay increase. Commuters stormed the Itaquera station next to the stadium where Brazil confront Croatia under suffocating expectation.
Sao Paulo’s attitude to the tournament is likely to set the tone across Brazil for the next five weeks.
Inside the Corinthians Arena, which holds 68,000 and will stage six games, the tables are still piled up on concourses. The mood, though, is surprisingly cheerful. Brazil’s first home World Cup game since 1950 will take place in a brightly painted white shell, with just enough home comforts to make it viable as a place to welcome the world.
The temporary stand at one end of the ground was always meant to be temporary. Less excusable is the elaborate and precarious looking scaffold bridge that will carry spectators over the main road.
This curtain-raising venue is incompatible, of course, with all our outmoded images of what Brazilian football looks like. The fantasy was that everything would feel like the Maracana in its golden era, with song, dance and spontaneity. The modern World Cup has consigned mass participation and crowd fervour to history. Or so we fear.
On Thursday we will find out whether the natural Brazilian love of football can still express itself in an arena that was built to offer a Fifa-defined entertainment experience. We must hope so.
If returning the World Cup here was a sacred duty, sending it to Russia in 2018 and Qatar four years later is pure economic expansionism, and Fifa’s attempts to portray itself as the friend of football will not be helped by the spectacle of its boffins assembling for this week’s Congress.
The good news is that a patch of Brazilian grass shimmered in the sun, and will be the stage on which the game retakes the ball from those who try to steal it. There, you feel the hope, the thrill. But Brazilians will decide for themselves whether they will buy into it.
