A groundswell of dissatisfaction with the current state of Brazil’s 2014 World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) continues to form following a second set of negative comments in as many weeks from another Federal Deputy. In a report approved unanimously by the Chamber of Deputies’ Financial Regulation and Control Commission, Paulo Rattes, member of the Chamber’s World Cup 2014 sub-commission, has complained about the ‘inexistence’ of planning, strategic actions and cost provisions.
He stated that “nothing, nothing exists” and explained that his report is so critical simply because that is the reality of the situation, plus the fact that there is a dangerous precedent for the current lack of preparation: the Pan-American Games of 2007, which suffered from a significant blow out in spending because a number of urgent, last-minute works were required.
Rattes suggested the creation of a new organising commission incorporating the most number of relevant stakeholders possible, as opposed to the present situation in which the Brazilian Football Federation, headed by Ricardo Teixeira, doesn’t bother to appear at commission hearings or even respond to invites. He said the organisation of the Cup is a ‘black box’ that no one except Teixeira and ‘his mates’ can enter.
Even FIFA was not spared, with Rattes remarking that while they consider some of their requirements as absurd they don’t even have the opportunity to voice concerns or discuss the situation in an open forum.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Pressure on 'private' 2014 Organizing Committee
Federal Deputy Sílvio Torres, a member of Brazil's Sub-commission supervising the 2014 World Cup, has called for much greater transparency from the Federal Government and Local Organising Committee (LOC) following a recent tour to South Africa to inspect preparations for the 2010 event. The sub-commission, set up in June this year by the country’s Chamber of Deputies, is aiming to follow and report on all public spending on the Cup as closely as possible to ensure all decisions and decision makers are held to account.
Torres commented this week that, unlike the 2010 LOC, which he described as democratic and rightly consisting of representatives from a wide range of relevant sectors, Brazil’s 2014 LOC is essentially a ‘private’ body with a very centralised structure that doesn’t feel the need to justify its decisions to anybody. Going further, he pointed out that, given the 2014 LOC is essentially under the auspices of the Brazilian Football Federation, and with Ricardo Teixeira heading both bodies, it is not advisable to give the Committee so much freedom and decision making power in light of the current state of the Brazilian football league.
Torres recommends creating an intergovernmental executive committee incorporating various ministers and sectors to oversee all decisions relating to the Cup.
The comments come as Torres presides over this week´s launch of a new website aimed at publishing details of all public spending, works, and tenders involving Cup projects. Established by the National Congress upon prompting by Torres himself, the ‘Network of Supervision and Control of The 2014 Cup’ will attempt to overcome the 2014 LOC’s lack of transparency to this point and will also be used for Rio 2016 projects.
Torres commented this week that, unlike the 2010 LOC, which he described as democratic and rightly consisting of representatives from a wide range of relevant sectors, Brazil’s 2014 LOC is essentially a ‘private’ body with a very centralised structure that doesn’t feel the need to justify its decisions to anybody. Going further, he pointed out that, given the 2014 LOC is essentially under the auspices of the Brazilian Football Federation, and with Ricardo Teixeira heading both bodies, it is not advisable to give the Committee so much freedom and decision making power in light of the current state of the Brazilian football league.
Torres recommends creating an intergovernmental executive committee incorporating various ministers and sectors to oversee all decisions relating to the Cup.
The comments come as Torres presides over this week´s launch of a new website aimed at publishing details of all public spending, works, and tenders involving Cup projects. Established by the National Congress upon prompting by Torres himself, the ‘Network of Supervision and Control of The 2014 Cup’ will attempt to overcome the 2014 LOC’s lack of transparency to this point and will also be used for Rio 2016 projects.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Another day, another delay, as the Pantanal gets a green stadium
This week has seen two more quite visible delays in World Cup 2014 projects, one caused by success on the field and the other by weakness off it.
In Rio, the state secretary for sport, tourism and leisure, Márcia Lins, has revealed that work on Maracanã will now not begin until after August 2010 to allow Flamengo to use the ground for its Copa Libertadores matches, following the team's strong end to the 2009 Brazilian season and subsequent classification for the South American clubs tournament. The Maracanã upgrade had been scheduled to begin in December 2009 but has been delayed until March 2010, with the initial, external works to allow the stadium to remain in use until August, when it will close until the completion of works. The additional difficulties involved with working on an operational stadium are still being considered by the planning committee and architects.
In Cuiabá, which sits in the exact centre of South America and is the capital of the state of Mato Grosso (thick bush), the tender period for developers of the city's new stadium has been extended six weeks to allow more groups to submit their proposals. The tender was supposed to close Wednesday 9/12 but organisers decided that the 18 submitted bids were not sufficient and that the additional time will not affect the project start date, currently scheduled for February 2010.
Also in Cuiabá, the public release of plans for the new World Cup-standard stadium show a strong focus on sustainability - economic, social and environmental. The project, by Sao Paulo's GCP Architects, involves a flexible, demountable facility which will eventually be reduced to around 70% of its World Cup-mode capacity of 43,000 spectators. The design also features a strong focus on ventilation systems to help cope with the region's sweltering summers, while another key to the project is the stadium's integration with the surrounding areas, with plans to create a new urban centre post-2014. The entire project is currently budgeted at R$440 million.
In Rio, the state secretary for sport, tourism and leisure, Márcia Lins, has revealed that work on Maracanã will now not begin until after August 2010 to allow Flamengo to use the ground for its Copa Libertadores matches, following the team's strong end to the 2009 Brazilian season and subsequent classification for the South American clubs tournament. The Maracanã upgrade had been scheduled to begin in December 2009 but has been delayed until March 2010, with the initial, external works to allow the stadium to remain in use until August, when it will close until the completion of works. The additional difficulties involved with working on an operational stadium are still being considered by the planning committee and architects.
In Cuiabá, which sits in the exact centre of South America and is the capital of the state of Mato Grosso (thick bush), the tender period for developers of the city's new stadium has been extended six weeks to allow more groups to submit their proposals. The tender was supposed to close Wednesday 9/12 but organisers decided that the 18 submitted bids were not sufficient and that the additional time will not affect the project start date, currently scheduled for February 2010.
Also in Cuiabá, the public release of plans for the new World Cup-standard stadium show a strong focus on sustainability - economic, social and environmental. The project, by Sao Paulo's GCP Architects, involves a flexible, demountable facility which will eventually be reduced to around 70% of its World Cup-mode capacity of 43,000 spectators. The design also features a strong focus on ventilation systems to help cope with the region's sweltering summers, while another key to the project is the stadium's integration with the surrounding areas, with plans to create a new urban centre post-2014. The entire project is currently budgeted at R$440 million.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Delaying the inevitable in Brazil
While this week’s World Cup pools draw has focused the football world’s attention squarely on South Africa 2010, the groundwork and planning for Brazil 2014 continues to gather much needed momentum. Following an ominous but also welcome warning (if not an admission) from the country’s top sport authority, Sport Minister Orlando Silva Junior, that Brazil’s infamous bureaucracy could make it very difficult to hit all Cup 2014 targets on time, it is worth mentioning a few of the issues surrounding foreign groups keen to secure a piece of the R$125 billion+ spending pie over the next four or so years, or seven including Rio 2016.
First, although things are still going slowly, it appears that a number of countries are gradually moving their chess pieces into place in preparation for a rush of activity in the (hopefully) not too distant future. As pretty much everyone waits for the relevant city, state and federal government bodies to get their act into gear and start mapping out projects clearly and definitively, the amount of groups planning to throw their hats in the ring gradually swells.
Just this week, Germany has signed a cooperation agreement with Brazil aimed at sharing lessons from the 2006 Cup, while Cup and Olympics focused groups from the UK, US, Australia, and Portugal, amongst others, have been touring the country in recent months trying to forge relationships with 2014 and 2016 decision makers. At the same time, Brazilian delegations representing all manner of major event related sectors have been heading off to all parts of the globe in search of ideas, inspiration and potential partners; most recently, representatives from eight of the 12 host cities plus Brazilian Football Federation chief Ricardo Teixeira were in South Africa at the annual Soccerex festival and conference, promoting their respective merits to the event’s strong line-up of global football and sport business industry players.
The current wave of activity follows months of seminars, round tables and architectural project presentations all around the country: exciting and certainly feel good but yet to be followed up by much in the way any tangible, concrete work. The latter, in many cases, has been on the verge of beginning, but, as if often the case in Brazil, last minute problems or changes have pushed back starting dates. To use a symbolic example, the release date of official development plans for the upgrade to Rio’s Maracana stadium, the host of the 2014 Cup final and centrepiece of Rio 2016, has already been pushed back twice, from September to October and then to December (they are still not yet available).
Although this situation of delays and bureaucratic bungling is certainly worrying, there are definitely positive aspects for foreign groups hoping to enter the Brazilian market through Cup and Olympic driven projects. Not only does the situation give outsiders more time to get themselves ready for doing business in Brazil, a difficult task in itself, but the increasingly compressed time-line will also force both decision makers and Brazilian businesses into finding solutions and ‘delivering the goods’ at much shorter notice. Given Brazil’s relative inexperience at hosting major events, combined with the massive scale of social and urban improvements being planned, all with very real and immovable finish lines, it is not difficult to see that foreign groups offering quicker, more efficient outcomes founded on successful experiences with similar projects around the world will have better chances of winning work. Add to this Brazil’s somewhat cloudy history of absolute and utter transparency in the public realm, it is pretty clear that at least some of the thousands of contracts to be on offer all around the country will be decided and pushed through quickly and without the diligence that might otherwise be expected.
For non-Brazilian parties then, the idea will be to ensure that they are not only ready to open for business in Brazil at short notice, but that, maybe more importantly, they know all the key groups and players in their respective decision making processes, just in case all the relevant information doesn’t end up coming out through the regular, official channels.
First, although things are still going slowly, it appears that a number of countries are gradually moving their chess pieces into place in preparation for a rush of activity in the (hopefully) not too distant future. As pretty much everyone waits for the relevant city, state and federal government bodies to get their act into gear and start mapping out projects clearly and definitively, the amount of groups planning to throw their hats in the ring gradually swells.
Just this week, Germany has signed a cooperation agreement with Brazil aimed at sharing lessons from the 2006 Cup, while Cup and Olympics focused groups from the UK, US, Australia, and Portugal, amongst others, have been touring the country in recent months trying to forge relationships with 2014 and 2016 decision makers. At the same time, Brazilian delegations representing all manner of major event related sectors have been heading off to all parts of the globe in search of ideas, inspiration and potential partners; most recently, representatives from eight of the 12 host cities plus Brazilian Football Federation chief Ricardo Teixeira were in South Africa at the annual Soccerex festival and conference, promoting their respective merits to the event’s strong line-up of global football and sport business industry players.
The current wave of activity follows months of seminars, round tables and architectural project presentations all around the country: exciting and certainly feel good but yet to be followed up by much in the way any tangible, concrete work. The latter, in many cases, has been on the verge of beginning, but, as if often the case in Brazil, last minute problems or changes have pushed back starting dates. To use a symbolic example, the release date of official development plans for the upgrade to Rio’s Maracana stadium, the host of the 2014 Cup final and centrepiece of Rio 2016, has already been pushed back twice, from September to October and then to December (they are still not yet available).
Although this situation of delays and bureaucratic bungling is certainly worrying, there are definitely positive aspects for foreign groups hoping to enter the Brazilian market through Cup and Olympic driven projects. Not only does the situation give outsiders more time to get themselves ready for doing business in Brazil, a difficult task in itself, but the increasingly compressed time-line will also force both decision makers and Brazilian businesses into finding solutions and ‘delivering the goods’ at much shorter notice. Given Brazil’s relative inexperience at hosting major events, combined with the massive scale of social and urban improvements being planned, all with very real and immovable finish lines, it is not difficult to see that foreign groups offering quicker, more efficient outcomes founded on successful experiences with similar projects around the world will have better chances of winning work. Add to this Brazil’s somewhat cloudy history of absolute and utter transparency in the public realm, it is pretty clear that at least some of the thousands of contracts to be on offer all around the country will be decided and pushed through quickly and without the diligence that might otherwise be expected.
For non-Brazilian parties then, the idea will be to ensure that they are not only ready to open for business in Brazil at short notice, but that, maybe more importantly, they know all the key groups and players in their respective decision making processes, just in case all the relevant information doesn’t end up coming out through the regular, official channels.
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