October 29 – A senior FIFA figure has questioned Brazil’s reasons for staging this year’s World Cup, suggesting legacy and social change was a less important factor than trying to win a sixth world crown.
Often violent public protests about the cost of staging the tournament plagued organisers throughout the buildup whilst on the field they were humiliated 7-1 by Germany in the semifinals.
Four months after the event, hooliganism and racism are still ongoing issues in Brazilian football and Alexander Koch, FIFA’s corporate communications manager, was quoted as telling delegates at the Host City: Bid to Win conference in London that the social change issue may have been overplayed.
“Why did Brazil host the World Cup? We’re actually still wondering why they wanted to,” said Koch.
“The answer we only found deep into the organisation was that the only purpose was to win it. That’s it.”
Claiming that organising the World Cup cost FIFA far more than it did the hosts, Koch said:
“In the case of Brazil, you have this World Cup matrix which pretty much every single infrastructure measurement in the last seven years prior to the event was put under.
“So every metro or bus line that was constructed was put under the cost of staging the World Cup. And that’s why this number of $31 billion [for the World Cup and Rio Olympics] came up.
“But what does this have to do with the World Cup? We don’t need a new bus line, we don’t need the changing of a favela. It was never required.
“The temporary infrastructure, yes, that’s the cost of staging the World Cup, and only that is the cost.”
Koch said that this cost was $600 million and that the event cost FIFA itself $1.7 billion, though it did profit by $2.7 billion.
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