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Marc Ribeiro

Mr. Buffington

English 2010

10/30/14

How The World Cup Can Ruin a Country

Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world. The World Cup is a big soccer

event that was created to find out which country has the best soccer team. It happens every four

years and it is hosted in a different country every time. It is a month long event that includes 64

games (Matches) with 31 teams competing. Along with the opportunity to host the games a

country has to spend a lot of money to meet the standards set by FIFA, the international soccer

association, by upgrading their infrastructure and internal security. FIFA sets these standard

because they are a very big corporation and they want to maintain a good image since the event

is televised all over the world and is watched by about 715 million people (Facts and Figures).

During the summer I got the chance to go see a couple of games in Brazil and also got to see first

hand how the country was reacting to the idea of having the games there. My cousin got my

family and I tickets to see two of the games. The games I got to see were Brazil vs. Chile and

Algeria vs. Belgium. The games were amazing and a lot of fun. After the game I noticed that

there were police officers everywhere. I first thought it was just to keep everyone safe since there

were a lot of people on the streets, but after asking my cousin, he explained to me that it was

because of the riots that were happening. He also explained to me how the event was ruining the

country because FIFA was making the government spend all this money just so they would be

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able to host the event. As lovers of the sport, the whole country wanted it to happen there but no

one wanted that amount of money to be spent on something that was only going to last one

month. For a corporation like FIFA not to consider the economic position of a country or what

the people wanted before deciding to have such a big event there was wrong. The solution for the

problem is to ask the people if they want the event to happen there and make sure that the

country is in a good financial position and that they are able to host such an event before

deciding on the location.

When the Brazilian population found out that the World Cup was going to happen in

Brazil there were a lot of mixed feelings. At the beginning people were all up to the idea but

once they found out how much money would be spent, the riots started. When a country is

selected to host the World Cup there are a lot of requirements that they need to deal with. They

have to build new stadiums and refurbish old ones so they can handle the amount of people that

would be coming in to watch the games. They need to build new roads and upgrade the existing

ones to be able to handle the traffic. They also need to spend money hiring new police officers so

they can maintain order. Now, if a country is in a good financial position and can afford to build

all these new things it is a good idea to have this event, but in a country where poverty rates are

up, and the money could be used to build

new hospitals and schools, you can see why

the people were getting mad. They also

thought that it was going to be a waste of

money since all the “upgrades” the country

was getting were being done only for an event (figure 1)

that was a month long, and after everything was going to get back to normal.

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Another big problem that the World Cup brings to the country is all the new stadiums

they have to build. Instead of only refurbishing the old stadiums, they decided to build new ones

too (see fig. 1) because they wanted the games to be all over the country. Just on these upgrades

the country spent about $4 billion (Macguire). Building new stadiums was not the biggest

problem; it was where they were being built. They built stadiums in states that don’t even have

soccer teams, leaving the stadium without use after the cup was over. Also the amount of money

necessary to maintain the stadiums is very big and now they need to maintain something that

they are not even using. Worst of all are the states that don’t have the money to maintain the

stadiums, so they will be just left there without use or proper maintenance, therefore wasting all

of the money that was spent on the construction.

The biggest down side of having the world cup in Brazil were the protests and riots.

When the population found out that more than $11.7 billion was going to be spent on the Cup

(Antunes), all hell broke loose. People weren’t expecting that much money to be spent in the

event. In Brazil they have public education and health care for everyone, but not enough money

is being spent in it so teachers end up going on strikes because they are not getting paid enough,

making the students mad because they have to put their education on hold every time it happens.

Also since the hospitals don’t get enough money there

aren’t that many doctors, so people that need help

need to wait a long time before they can be seen by

someone. So this made college kids, and favela

members (lower class citizens that live in the slums of

Brazil) who usually are never together since they

come from different social groups, united and decided (figure 2)

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to march the streets protesting the Cup (see fig. 2). It all started as a peaceful protest but the

amount of people that were there had the government scared. This caused the government to

panic and send the military in to try to control the people. Since the officers had less people than

the protesters, they felt like they would get overpowered and started to act more aggressive. The

soldiers started shooting kids with rubber

bullets and started to use tear gas and pepper

spray on people. This led the protesters to start

destroy things and to fight back against the

police. Many businesses got destroyed and lots

of people got arrested and hurt (see fig. 3).

(figure 3) All of these bad things happened

during this time and I see a few solutions that might solve this problem so it will never happen

again in other countries. One of the ways of preventing protests and riots is to have FIFA do a

vote for the people to decide if they want the event to happen in their country. It wouldn’t cost

them a lot of money since they could do it over the Internet. With them knowing that the people

want it happen, they will have less protests and riots and it will be a more pleasant event for the

citizens and the tourists. It will also decrease the amount of money the country needs to spend of

police since they know that large-scale protests won’t be happening. Another way to prevent

these problems is to make sure that the country is in a good economical place and they can afford

to spend the money on the requirements that FIFA wants. They need to know that a country has

the extra money necessary and its not neglecting the needs of the it’s citizens just for a game.

They can do this by having meetings with officials and discuss their economical status. Once

they are satisfied with the evidence presented by the officials that the country can support such

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an event, they can make the choice of asking the country to host the event. They can also choose

better locations for the stadiums. They should not build any stadiums in places that don’t have

soccer teams because the stadium just ends up being neglected by the government since there are

no teams using it. This will help the government to save some money and will make sure that the

stadiums are being used and not just left there. This way they can also get some of the money

back from all of the events that they decide to host after. If they just do these three things before

they decide where the games will be hosted, it will let them have a much better event. The only

objection I see with my proposal is the government getting in the way and looking only at what

they think is better and not what the people want.

The World Cup is a fun and enjoyable event to go to but if it’s going to hurt the country it

is a bad idea. By making these changes before deciding where the events will be hosted, FIFA

will seem like a way better company. By making sure that the country can support the event and

that the people want it to happen there, they will prevent protests and riots and not have any bad

publicity for the company. Most of the people will be happy with the decision since they voted

for it, making it a much more enjoyable event for everyone. All of these solutions can be

achieved very easily and wouldn’t take a lot of time. If the solutions are ignored I can only see

this happening again. In 2018 the World Cup is happening in Russia and I don’t think people will

be happy with it either. Russia is one of the countries with the highest heroin user rates in the

world. People would be much happier if the government did something to combat the drug

dealers and created places for the people with addiction problems to get help. It was a very fun

event and I would absolutely go to another one if I had the chance. Besides those problems the

events are very organized and run smoothly. They way they had it set up was safe and no one

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had to worry about something happening inside of the stadium because of how much security

was there.

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Works Cited

Antunes, Anderson. “How The 2014 FIFA World Cup Became The Worst Publicity Stunt In History” Forbes, 27 May. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014

“Facts and Figures.” FIFA.com. FIFA, 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014

Macguire, Eoghan. “Who are the real winners and losers of the 2014 World Cup?” CNN, 11 Jun. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014

“Matches” FIFA.com. FIFA, 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014

Figure 1. “Estadio Mineirao Belo Horizonte Stadium 2014 World Cup” wallhidehd. Wall Hide HD, 5 May 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014

Figure 2. Antunes, Anderson. “How The 2014 FIFA World Cup Became The Worst Publicity

Stunt In History” Forbes, 27 May. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014

Figure 3. Hider, James. “Protests spread across Brazil over cost of hosting the World Cup” TheTimes. The Times US & American, 18 Jun. 2013. Web. 29 Oct. 2014

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