Brazil Plans Free World Cup Tickets for Poor
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The Brazilian government will issue free tickets for the upcoming 2014 World Cup Finals to its poor and indigenous people, said The Independent on Tuesday, with authorities planning to do the same for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The Brazilian government will issue free tickets for the upcoming 2014 World Cup Finals to its poor and indigenous people, said The Independent on Tuesday, with authorities planning to do the same for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
According to the report, up to 10 percent of the three million seats for the 2014 World Cup has already been reserved for Brazilian students and pensioners at half the ticket price; but with 26 percent of the population presently living below the poverty line, there have been concerns that the tournament may remain inaccessible to much of the football-crazy nation.
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“We not only want cheaper tickets we want free tickets as well,” said Brazil’s Minister of Sport Aldo Rebelo.
[quote]”We are going to have free tickets for a representation of the indigenous populations and also for those that receive benefit. These people cannot afford to pay anything and it would be bad for FIFA (the global football governing body) and Brazil to hold a World Cup with all the very poor people absent.”[/quote]Ticket sales for the tournament will begin next year, with FIFA being the only authority that can determine their prices. During the last World Cup in South Africa in 2010, the football governing body introduced cut-price tickets to try and make the tournament more accessible to the local population, though they ended up losing money on ticket sales.
“I’m not going to expect FIFA to support the proposal, I’m going to make it happen,” Rebelo said, when questioned on FIFA’s possible resistance to free tickets.
“This is extremely important, I am a man of the Communist Party. I cannot help organise the largest football party in the world without being concerned with the people who are poor and indigenous in my country.”
Still, relationships between Brazil’s sports authorities and FIFA have been strained in recent times, with FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke recently criticizing the country for a perceived failure to meet with the timeline for tournament preparations.
The organisers “need a kick up the arse,” said Valcke in March, as quoted by The Guardian.
Rebelo himself responded back then that Valcke’s comments were “unacceptable” and refused to work with Valcke any further.
“We have always had a cordial attitude towards everyone from Fifa. We can’t accept such an offensive comment. He can’t say something like that about a country. It’s unacceptable,” he said.
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Fortunately, both parties now appear to have reached a compromise with Rebelo telling The Independent that relations with FIFA were now “stable.”
[quote]”FIFA is a private organisation, its focus is on private interests and the interests of their sponsors. The Brazilian government is concerned with the public interest and the national interest and is not going to relinquish. Where the public interest does not coincide with the interests of FIFA what will prevail is the public interest.“[/quote]
