Splendid bit of aggro going on in Brazil.
I really don’t blame the Brazilians,who have notoriously poor public services, protesting vigorously against the use of their funds for the ludicrous aggrandisement of a few sports fans. Plus all the associated graft, corruption and backhanders to officials.
I have never been able to understand why public money in any country should be wasted on providing stadia for exceptionally rich football clubs to make further profits. Any outfit that can afford to pay their moronic employees millions per year can afford the grounds should they want to. Why the public should subsidise any voluntary activity is beyond me. I include the Arts, Opera, Olympics etc. Those that want them should pay for them, not the rest of us! I’ll add other people’s brats to that list too!
With any luck all these events will be cancelled in Brazil. It is a great pity the UK didn’t respond likewise to the Olympics last year and save the country a great deal of wasted money. It is high time, if these events are wanted, that the moving and shaking officers located permanent arenas world wide and shared out sufficient contributions to the relevant participants to maintain such, rather than sucking at the public teat.
And send the bloody Olympics back to Greece with sufficient funding to keep it there forever. Think of the backhanders that will no longer have to be paid.
Well done the Brazilians.
PS I derive a degree of sardonic amusement re the current disintegration of the NHS and that appalling mawkish nonsense in the Olympic self stimulating mish-mash last year showing ‘tender angels of mercy ministrating to the sick’. More likely bumping them off any which way they can!!! i remember many here actively defending the NHS, I wonder if they are still quite so insouciant and trusting in their attitudes to the NHS? Had the money wasted on the Olympics been spent in the hospitals instead I doubt things would have come to quite such a pretty pass.
Oh, if only for a good revolution, any revolution, the UK sorely needs it. Never seen such a mess made in all my life.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Where did it all go wrong? I thought that Brazil was an economic powerhouse. Well, it was not long ago. This is a pity as purely on the sporting front the matches have been excellent.
Brazil have got pace in the team and a superstar in Neymar.
Spain’s possession football continues to dazzle.
Italy v Japan was a fantastic end to end contest with a shock result!
Tahiti… are a joy.
And now I need to scarper. Brazil v Italy 8pm our time.
Brazil has expanded to use up all its internal credit and no SOB outside is lending anything to anybody. They are being strangled for lack of working capital big time by the big Internationalists. Plus they export a lot of raw materials and world wide manufacturing is in the doldrums, demand has slacked off. Hence feeling the pinch a bit, not too much but enough to piss off the poor population. (As you see I do not have a degree in economics!)
Many of us here felt rather like that about the last Olympics, Tina.
Lasting heritage, I really don’t think so. Five minute wonder and although it went well, I don’t think there is any more interest in sport.
I don’t know what the eventual costs were, but economically, I doubt it was really worth it.
Can’t agree, Christina, with your statement: “Had the money wasted on the Olympics been spent in the hospitals instead I doubt things would have come to quite such a pretty pass.”
Had such a vast amount of money been handed to hospitals trusts, administrators, etc it would probably not have benefited doctors, nurses or patients very much at all. Yes, I’m a cynic and it wouldn’t bother me a bit if the World Cup didn’t happen.
Actually I have to agree with you sheona, had the money been spent on the NHS in its present form.
Too bureaucratic by half. charles Moore has a very apposite opinion piece in the Telegraph at the moment, spot on!
Ara you can bet that we will never hear of the final balance sheet for those Olympics, definitively negative in both finance and lasting legacy of sport for children. As usual the only ones to make a profit were the politicians and their cronies’ companies. Where is Guy Fawkes when you need him?
I think the world recession is now biting ordinary people so hard that protests will become daily events everywhere – and especially in the ’emerging’ economies with fragile infrastructures and dodgy accounts.
The Danish gubmint, like other socialist strongholds, is trying to fool the people into believing the worst is over – even though the man on the local omnibus knows that price inflation is rife, the housing market is dead and jobs are gradually disappearing. The biggest problem is that Germany, a major trading partner, is by no means out of the wood – so there’s no room for optimism there either.
Gubmints have to be reminded of the priorities, innit?
Report here.
It has to be recognised that Brazil probably started bidding for the the world cup back around 2001/2, they were awarded the hosting rights way back in 2007 and haven’t things changed since then?
Now, I too am no economist but if memory serves me correctly the BRIC economies were thriving, growing at ridiculous rates and the future was rosey, well that all changed didn’t it?
I’m no fan of Fifa bureaucracy, Romario is quite correct when he accuses them of presiding over the country, can Brazil afford this, obviously not now, but who could have known?
Should Brazil have scaled down their building and told Fifa to “piss off” ? YES
So, I’m almost in agreement with you, it’s the castles in the air, head in the clouds approach and of course Fifa grandstanding that’s at fault here, tournaments such as these CAN be held using existing infrastructure with much smaller costs keeping everybody happy except the chauffeur driven, cigar smoking, five star hotel sojourners, administrators and contractors who cream (steal(?)) at everybody else’s expense, I have no time for them.
Having said all of that, our little stadium (built at a cost of under £100 million for the world cup) was a much needed facility for our region, it is no white elephant, it’s well used, and is operating at a profit, I’m happy with that 🙂
Very interesting your no 7 soutie.
Both the FIFA committee and their Olympic counterparts are truly some of the most disgusting corrupt slime to be found anywhere.
There really is a need to locate these damned facilities at a permanent base, it would stop a lot of the corruption and back handers dead. Bung the lot on South Georgia or the Azores!!
The Azores could be a problem, Christina. Quite a few dormant volcanos. But South Georgia would be good.
Splendid, double dividend, think of the BBQ! Azores it is!