Brazil's World Cup Stadiums Are Way Behind Schedule. Will They Be Ready On Time?

Brazil promised all 12 venues would be ready by the end of last year, well ahead of the June 12 opener, but only seven have been completed. Six of them had to be ready for the Confederations Cup warm-up tournament last June.

With less than five months until kick-off, the Arena da Baixada in Curitiba is so far behind schedule that organisers admit it will not be ready for its first match on 16 June at the current speed of work.

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Five major developments, including the Arena de Sao Paulo, which due to host the opening match involving hosts Brazil on June 12 and the second semi-final, are miles behind schedule.

In Cuiaba, the pitch area is still covered with construction equipment including massive steel girders that have yet to be erected, with the Manaus and Curitiba grounds remaining “hard hat” areas with huge amounts of major building unfinished.

The first test match at a World Cup stadium in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre will not be played this weekend as planned because infrastructure work outside the venue has not been completed.

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The matches would serve as test events as the stadium prepares to host five World Cup games in June.

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Two workers were killed after an enormous crane collapsed and fell onto the £300million stadium that will host the football World Cup opener in Brazil.

A 55-year-old Portuguese man was killed in an accident on Friday while disassembling a crane that was used to install the stadium's roof, becoming the third worker to die at the venue in less than a year.

The crane - which is the biggest in Brazil - fell onto the construction site of the 68,000-seater Sao Paulo Arena this afternoon, destroying parts of the stands.

Initial promises that private finance would cover the cost of building new stadiums evaporated and about 80% of the bill is now being met from the public purse.

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Promised rapid transit systems, light rail, airport upgrades and other transport initiatives have all been quietly shelved or radically downgraded in Manaus, Salvador and numerous other venues.

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The Curitiba stadium, a joint venture between soccer team Atletico Paranaense and local government, has been complicated by financial disputes and confusion over its design. The delays pushed costs to renovate the arena up 44 percent to 265 million reais ($112 million).

The news from Curitiba was not good. Contractual disputes and financing "issues" among other problems meant the city's new Arena da Baixada was not just weeks but potentially months behind schedule

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There have also been public protests over the amounts of money being spent by the country's government on the tournament.

Dozens of workers the BBC spoke to this week said they had not been paid for weeks and were coming under tremendous pressure to finish the project.

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Labour unions warned safety standards are being compromised as a result of a last-minute rush after two other workers were killed in December at a stadium in Manaus that is also still incomplete. All World Cup stadiums were supposed to be finished by the end of December.

theguardian.com

Backers of one of the 12 stadiums being prepared for soccer’s World Cup have until Feb. 18 to come up with a plan to complete construction or face being excluded from soccer’s showpiece.

The Fifa secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, has given a four-week ultimatum to one of Brazil's World Cup host cities to accelerate stadium construction or risk being excluded from the tournament.

theguardian.com

The top World Cup official at governing body FIFA yesterday said the Arena da Baixada could be removed from the tournament schedule unless a detailed plan to meet construction deadlines is in place by the time coaches from 32 competing nations arrive for a workshop next month.

More workers will be brought on site and a third shift will be introduced to speed up construction.

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The Parana government has promised to put up an extra 39m reals (£10m) to pay for the increased workforce.

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World Cup organizers have demanded the creation of a new management committee to oversee the project and an increase in the speed of work by hiring more laborers. Consultants from Price Waterhouse Coopers have been hired to ensure loans from Brazil’s development bank arrive on time.

Following talks with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff at FIFA's headquarters in Zurich, which came after the two sides locked horns over the readiness of stadiums, Blatter said the outlook was fine for the looming tournament.

Blatter said he was "staying relaxed" because he knows "from experience" that delays are common in preparations for every World Cup and Olympics.

"We now still have several months to go and we still need to make a few small adjustments here and there. I'm used to World Cups. There won't be any problem. In the end, everything will be fine in Brazil," Blatter said.