By Samindra Kunti
April 14 – Six out of Brazil’s 12 World Cup stadiums were constructed amid financial irregularities, according to documents from construction giant Odebrecht as Brazil’s large corruption scandal Lava Jato (operation car wash) deepens further.
Operation Car Wash is an investigation being carried out by Brazil’s federal police that began in 2014 initially as a money laundering case but has expanded to cover allegations of corruption at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras, where executives allegedly accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to construction firms at inflated prices.
The investigation has now moved on to include the construction of the World Cup stadia.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) is to investigate “possible criminal practice associated with the construction of Arena Corinthians”, but has referred the cases involving the Maracanã, the Mané Garrincha stadium, the Arena Castelão, the Arena da Amazon and the Pernambuco Arena for further investigation.
In the case of Brasilia’s Mané Garrincha, the 2014 World Cup’s most expensive stadium at R$ 1,4 billion (almost $900 million), a ‘market agreement’ was in place, but no detail of how the crimes were crimes constructed were divulged.
The Maracana, which hosted the World Cup final between Germany and Argentina, is also part of the probe. The stadium renovation ran 75% over its initial projected budget. Then Rio de Janeiro governor Sérgio Cabral benefited from the construction and ‘payments in favour’ of officials of the Court of Accounts of the State of Rio de Janeiro (TCE-RJ) were made, according to the investigation.
The STF will look into the construction of the Arena Corinthians, which hosted the opening game between the hosts and Croatia. Today the stadium is the home ground of Brazilian giants Corinthians.
Brazil hosted the last World Cup in 12 venues across twelves cities: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porte Alegre, Recife, Fortaleza, Manaus, Brasilia, Natal, Cuiaba, Curitiba and Salvador.
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