Andrew Downie reports that the good news is that despite late starts and strikes, work on the 12 stadiums being built or renovated for the 2014 World Cup islargely on schedule.
The bad news is that they are already three times over budget and are being built with taxpayers’ money despite initial promises that private enterprise would foot thebill.
“I don’t understand why a stadium in Brazil needs to cost 500 million reais ($275 million) when there are examples of stadiums built elsewhere in the world with 40,000 or 50,000 seatsthat cost less than half that,” said Amir Somoggi, Sports Management Consulting Director at BDO Brazil, an auditing firm.
Overall, the estimated cost of stadiums has morethan tripled since Brazil were awarded the tournament in 2007. The current official estimate of 6.7 billion reais ($3.68 billion) is well above the 1.4 billion euros ($1.87 billion) Germany spent onits 12 stadiums for the 2006 World Cup and more than twice the $1.48 billion South Africa spent on 10 arenas just two years ago.