As of June 2014, the 2014 World Cup is Facebook’s most popular event ever, generating 3 billion interactions on Facebook, according to the Mail Online. Even Americans, notorious for their indifferent attitude towards soccer, got into the World Cup madness. “Average U.S. viewership for all this year’s World Cup games was up by 39 per cent on 2010 games”, with “17.3 million viewers on ABC, 9.2 million on Univision and 750,000 people online,” the Mail said.
This worldwide enthusiasm has been great for the World Cup’s governing body, FIFA as it generated 2.36 billion dollars in 2014, according to Business Insider. But the increased attention has also comes with unforeseen consequences. Since the 2014 games, people are much more aware of FIFA’s gross and unethical practices.
Before the 2014 games, Brazil’s slums erupted in violence with police over Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup. Many Brazilians were furious over the government’s decision to spend 13.3 billion dollars on the games while around 1/3 0f Brazil’s population lives in poverty.
Included in the 13.3 billion is a 260 million dollar stadium in the town of Manaus, deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Due to the harsh jungle terrain the stadium was both expensive to build and almost impossible to use now that the World Cup is over. According to ABC News, the next use of the stadium will be on July 20th between two local teams and despite the 40,000 seats, “officials are hoping for 4,000 fans.”
Contrary to popular belief, Brazil will make very little money from their hosting of the World Cup. As reported in The Guardian’s article World Cup 2014: who’s cashing in, “ratings agency Moody’s estimated that the lasting effect of the World Cup on Brazil’s economy would be, approximately, nothing.” This raises the question, if Brazil isn’t going to benefit from the hosting the World Cup, is it worth it? For many countries, it is.
For many countries with developing economies, like Brazil, FIFA’s promises of economic benefits for hosting the games is extremely enticing. Unfortunately, these promises blind these countries leaders and often lead to exploitation.
In 2003, Brazil’s government passed legislation prohibiting the sale of all alcoholic beverages in football arenas. For years, Brazilian football games were plagued with extremely high death rates among fans. According to the BBC, “the ban was introduced as part of measures to tackle violence among rival fans and hooliganism.” But this potentially life saving legislation was changed in 2014, removing all mention of alcohol sales, just before the World Cup due to pressure from FIFA. Why? Wouldn’t FIFA want the World Cup to be as safe as possible? As always safety takes a backseat to profits.
According to FIFA’s website, Budweiser, one of the world’s largest beer companies is the official sponsor of the 2014 World Cup. Budweiser’s money, not the health and wellbeing of fans prompted FIFA’s General Secretary, Jerome Valcke to address the Brazilian Congress, telling them,” Alcoholic drinks are part of the FIFA World Cup, so we’re going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that’s something we won’t negotiate.”
Despite calls from Health Minister Alexandre Padilha and other members of Congress to keep the law, FIFA’s lies of jumpstart to Brazil’s economy were too good to refuse. The law was passed by Congress and signed by President Rousseff.
For most Westerners, living in nations with strong stable economies, it’s hard to imagine an organization like FIFA exploiting a nation like the United States or England. But for developing nations, this happens all the time.
For the past two games, FIFA has held the World Cup the developing nations of South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014. FIFA forces these nations to spend money they don’t have on stadiums they don’t need in return for money that they never receive. When June ends and the games finish, FIFA leaves and takes the money with them.
