World cup in Brazil. Stadiums instead of public transport.

I am a huge fan of football or soccer as it is called in the English speaking world. Unfortunately Brazil is a long way from Brisbane and as much as I would love to be able to watch Greece or Australia play at the world cup, unfortunately I had to watch the games on TV.

The Mundial as I've learned to know the world cup from my youth, as all huge sport competitions has also a transport and traffic side. As in the London Olympic games in 2012, the organizers have to plan an effective way to move tens of thousands of people to and from the venues safely. The big difference of the world cup from the Olympic games, is that the world cup is hosted across a whole country and there is only one game at a time while the Olympic games are hosted around a city (and a bit further out) with lots of different games and sports happening at the same time. The Olympic games are much bigger competition from a transport and traffic point of view but the transport task of the Mundial is quite significant as well.

Brazil promised FIFA and the Brazilian people a series of upgrades on it's infrastructure. And while FIFA, which is accused for corruption cared more about the new stadiums like the new Sao Paolo arena, the carrot for most Brazilians was the upgrades to transport infrastructure. A series of transport projects like upgrades to airports and new light rail systems were planned to be delivered supposedly just before the first whistle of the referee in the game of Brazil against Croatia.

In reality Brazil ended up spending a huge amount of money and failed to deliver a lot of the transport infrastructure upgrades that it promised. The light rail in Cuiaba where Australia played the first game against Chile, was meant to help soccer fans get around but was not ready in time. Instead, the new light rail line from the airport into the city runs for just 500 metres until it disappears completely.

source: The Associated Press

And there are a lot of other traffic and transport related issues that add to Brazilians' disappointment and frustration.

Traffic congestion and gridlocks around stadiums is a regular phenomenon and that caused a number of fans to miss the opening minutes of matches. Even the second best football player of all times, missed the first half of the opening game between Brazil and Croatia, held up in traffic.

Fans in Brazil, also experience big delays at airports, as the network capacity can not cope with all the demand and a lot of the airport upgrades were not delivered in time. And then there are those unlucky fans that were delayed in air traffic just because elected politicians want to demonstrate their country's superiority through sports.

All these traffic problems, along with massive hikes in public transport fares and extreme poverty led to protests, especially on the transport sector and clashes with the police.

Next time we take a break at the game's half-time, let us take a moment and ask a simple question like the kid on the photograph. If people don't even benefit from the infrastructure upgrades of such sport events, then what's really left?