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The kick-off of the 20th edition of the Soccer World Cup is scheduled for June 12th, 2014.
Like in 1950, the competition will be held here, in Brazil.
Since 2007, when the country was chosen by Fifa to host the event,
the Brazilian Senate keeps track of all the initiatives taken by the federal government in preparation for the competition.
The senators conducted, in three different committees, more than 20 public hearings with
specialists and government officials, including the minister of Sports, Aldo Rebelo.
Brazil is capable of organizing a beautiful World Cup?
Are we going to host successful events? This is, naturally, our expectation.
Information related to how Brazil prepared itself for the World Cup can be found at the
20th edition of Em Discussão! magazine, that brings to its readers 56 pages fully illustrated
with images and infographics.
When Brazil was chosen to host the World Cup in 2007, one of the main requirements of Fifa
was modern arenas where the games of the competition could be played according to Fifa's standards.
From that point on, Brazil needed to build or renovate 12 stadiums in the 12 cities chosen to hold the matches.
One of the arenas is this one, the National Stadium "Mané Garrincha", in Brasília,
that cost, according to the latest data, 1,4 billion Reais (640 million dollars).
No other stadium that will be used in the World Cup cost more. The cost of each of the 72.777 seats is also the highest.
No other stadium that will be used in the World Cup cost more.
Initially, Brazilian officials said that the country would spend 2.8 billion Reais (1.3 billion dollars) with the arenas.
Now this bill has risen to 8 billion Reais (3.6 billion dollars). This number represents one third of all the investments
made by the country for the World Cup, that total 26 billion Reais (25.5 billion dollars).
The percentage spent with the arenas is much higher than the percentage spent with urban
mobility or with the airports, differently from what was expected four years ago.
Senator Alvaro Dias "The Brazilian government is spending 30 billion Reais with constructions related to the World Cup. This is a scandal!"
Senator Humberto Costa "The Federal government has not spent one single penny with arenas in each one of the states."
The approval of the General Law for the World Cup was another source of controversy in the Brazilian Congress.
One of the articles of the bill that generated more disagreement was the possibility of selling alcoholic beverages inside the stadiums.
Brazil had banned the consumption of alcohol inside the arenas, but, since a beer industry is one of Fifa's major sponsors,
the soccer organization demanded that the beverage could be sold freely in the stadiums during the World Cup.
Only after extensive debates, the Senate approved the rule that came along with other exceptions
to the legislation drafted especially for the event, including tax exemptions for enterprises
related to the World Cup and a new regime for public contracts.
Still in debate are new rules for demonstrations in the streets of Brazilian cities.
Em Discussão! magazine also brings the results of an exclusive public opinion research
related to the World Cup. Half of the citizens interviewed approves the World Cup in Brazil
whereas another half disapproves or didn't want the event to be held in the country any more.
Moreover, the great majority of the persons heard rejects the public expenditure in the construction of soccer arenas.
This trend was first identified last year, in June, when millions of Brazilians demonstrated in the streets of the biggest cities,
showing disagreement with the fact that public money was being used to promote the Soccer World Cup.
Among the initiatives taken to prepare the country for the competition,
the investments in airports are the ones that have a bigger portion of private money.
The reason for it is that some airports, like the Airport of Brasília, were privatized about one year ago.
The companies that took over these airports invested a lot of money and are going to complete, before the World Cup,
a part of the renovations listed in the contracts signed with the federal government.
All this information and much more can be found in the pages of the magazine,
that are also available at www.senado.leg.br/emdiscussao.