Sao Paulo still without a stadium for 2014 World Cup

July 22 – Brazil’s biggest city Sao Paulo is facing the prospect of missing out of hosting matches during the 2014 World Cup after officials failed to come up with a solution to finding a suitable stadium.

City officials and members of Brazil’s World Cup organising committee met but failed to come up with a stadium proposal to send to FIFA, although they continue to insist the goal is for the city to host the competition’s opening match.

“We will do everything possible for the opener to be in Sao Paulo,” Brazilian Football Federation President Ricardo Teixeira said.

“We didn’t discuss stadiums in this meeting, we only talked in general terms about the need for Sao Paulo to have a significant participation in the 2014 World Cup.”

Sao Paulo State Governor Alberto Goldman also angrily dismissed concerns that the city will be dropped as one of the hosts.

“We will find solutions, there is still time,” he said.

Morumbi Stadium was dropped from the original project earlier this year after FIFA said there were not enough financial guarantees for its renovation.

Since then, officials have been struggling to find an alternative that would keep Sao Paulo as one of the 12 host cities for the 2014 tournament.

There was a proposal to build a completely new stadium, which could later be used by Corinthians, but city officials said they would not use public funds to construct a new venue.

“There is public money only for the infrastructure which will be used by the population,” Goldman said.

Without Morumbi or a new stadium, only a few options are left on the table.

Palmeiras is renovating its stadium according to FIFA guidelines and could be used as a venue, although the initial plan was for it to serve as a training base for teams.

Seating capacity at the Palestra Italia stadium – which will be known as the Palestra Italia Arena – will increase from 30,000 to 45,000 when the upgrade is complete in 2012, not enough for the tournament’s opening match.

“We sent all the documentation offering our arena,” Palmeiras President Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo said.

Another option is to renovate the city’s outdated Pacaembu stadium, which now has a capacity of about 40,000, but so far there has not been any official project for such renovation.

The 50-year-old Morumbi would seat nearly 70,000 fans after being renovated, but FIFA and Brazilian organisers, said the city missed a May 14 deadline to underwrite a $135 million (£88 million) project.