Saturday, June 22, 2013

Brazil is saying what we could not: we don't want these costly extravaganzas...

From the World Cup to the G8, many countries are paying an extortionate price for hosting these pointless displays

On Tuesday evening a loud noise engulfed Parliament Square: a demonstration of flag-waving Brazilians. I asked one of them what he was protesting. It was, he said, the waste of money on the Olympics. I told him he was in the right city but the wrong year.

Here we go again. Brazil has been bamboozled into blowing $13bn on next year's football World Cup, and then on a similar sum to be later extorted by the International Olympic Committee to host the 2016 Games. Brazil's leftwing leader, Dilma Rousseff, was bequeathed the games by her populist predecessor, Lula da Silva. She has desperately tried to side with the protesters, but she is trapped by the oligarchs of Fifa and the IOC.

Brazil's citizens are being hit with higher bus fares and massive claims on health and welfare budgets. Up to half a million people may take to the streets this weekend to complain of "first world stadiums, third world schools". What is impressive about the demonstrators is that they appear not to be against sport as such, but against the extravagance of their staging. They are talking the language of priorities.

The World Cup is an ongoing scandal run by Fifa's unsackable boss, Sepp Blatter, on the back of ticket and television sales and soccer hysteria. Having bled the Brazilian exchequer of billions for new stadiums, he has the cheek to plead with demonstrators that "they should not use football to make their demands heard". Why not? Blatter uses football to make his demands heard. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. No, I'm not going to the World Cup...
  2. Protesters flood Brazilian cities over World Cup spending...
  3. Brazilians tell the world: DON’T COME to the 2014 World Cup...
  4. World Cup 2014: Brazil to boycott Fifa's Jerome Valcke...
  5. The World Cup and South Africa, the dark side...
  6. France Football says Qatar bought 2022 World Cup rights...
  7. Sepp Blatter hints Germany bought 2006 World Cup: Germans furious...
  8. FIFA, the FA, Blatter and Qatar's World Cup...

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