We’re less than a year ahead of next summer’s World Cup in Brazil, and the AP says that for travelers to the world soccer showcase, getting tickets to the games may be theeasiest part of their experience.
With the Confederations Cup now well under way, the report claims that two out of three visitors to the tropical northeastern city of Recife, for example,will not be able to find accommodation this week or next. Instead, spectators are being asked to travel as far as 75 miles away to spend the night, which is the New York City equivalent to staying inPhiladelphia to take in a Knicks game.
And that’s not the only problem: language is also a real issue throughout the country. Many FIFA-certified hotels will not have staff that speaksEnglish very well. As bed-and-breakfast owner Gunde Schneider says, “If you can afford English lessons, you’re not going to work the front desk of a hotel,” he said. “More likely,you’re the owner of the hotel.”
Even getting to Recife could be a problem, due to Brazil’s poor transportation infrastructure. Harmful regulations — particularly in the airline industry– high prices and bad traffic make getting around the huge country extremely difficult. In fact, according to the report, Brazil ranks among the World Economic Forum’s worst 25 countries (outof 140) in those categories, ranking behind the likes of Kazakhstan and Gambia.
It seems to me that FIFA should be spending 500 hundred million of their own money on direct transfers to the hosting country to help them develop the infrastructure required. If you want a world-class event, you either find a world-class host or you enable the chosen host to succeed by giving them the mountains of money required to get all this done. FIFA must think no one’s paid attention to the declining fan experience since 2006 that will be stretching to 2022. It’s their tournament, they can do whatever they choose, but it seems the WC is now designed to impovrish host nations, much like the Olympics.