INTERNATIONAL
VANDERBILT POLITICAL REVIEW
Divisions Exposed
W
Grappling with inequality, Brazil prepares to host the 2014
World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics
hen the typical American
thinks about Brazil, one of
the first things that comes to
mind is soccer. The South American nation has won the World Cup a record five
times, and national legends such as Pelé
and Ronaldo are among history’s most
recognizable athletes. When a nation becomes so accomplished on sports’ grandest stage, this success becomes inextricably tied to their national identity, and on
June 30th, 2013, inside the Estadio de
Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, this aspect of
Brazil’s identity was on full display. The
scrappy Brazilians outworked and outplayed a heavily favored Spanish team to
the delight of a raucous crowd of almost
75,000. Outside the stadium, however,
another side of that national identity was
also visible. That night, over 11,000 police officers and military personnel were
dispatched around the stadium in order to
control an estimated 1.5 million protesters who had taken to the streets after two
weeks of unprecedented social unrest. The
Brazil-Spain match inside was the final of
the Confederations Cup, a relatively small
international tournament played a year
in advance of the World Cup to demonstrate the next host nation’s preparations.
As Brazil readies itself to host the World
Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, the presence of significant
domestic backlash points to deep problems within one of the world’s emerging
economic giants. More specifically, approaching the World Cup, despite its nationalistic undertones, stands to reveal
and exacerbate the unsustainable income
4
inequality hanging over Brazil’s future.
Brazil currently sports the world’s seventh largest economy, and will likely surpass the United Kingdom – the world’s
sixth largest – in 2014. While Brazil’s
selection as the site of the 2014 World
Cup and 2016 Olympics highlight Brazil’s
With an estimated
price tag of
$3.2 billion, the
stadium will be
host to four World
Cup matches and
a very uncertain
future.
newfound relevance on the world stage,
it is clear that the nation still has a range
of pressing economic issues to deal with.
Protesters across the country decry everything from a broken education system to
elevated bus fares, yet these seemingly
disparate grievances all trace their origin
back to one glaring problem: a notoriously lopsided distribution of wealth. Despite
some success in efforts to combat poverty, Brazil was ranked as the tenth most
economically divided nation in the world
in 2009. The Brazilian working class has
found lavish spending on the upcoming
by WADE BOICH ‘15
World Cup and Olympics difficult to swallow, particularly when recent host nations
have yet to receive returns on their investments. The 2004 Athens Olympics, for example, cost approximately fifteen billion
dollars, yet many of the expensive venues
today sit vacant and crumbling. In South
Africa, the host of the 2010 World Cup,
many still question the wisdom of having
built a brand new 55,000-seat stadium in
Cape Town, especially since it cannot be
used for much other than a concert venue. Indeed, the “investment” involved in
large-scale sporting events has a history
of creating “white elephants,” or huge,
costly assets that prove difficult to use or
sell. Concern has already developed over
the eventual fate of several new Brazilian stadiums; the Amazonia Arena, for
example, is located in Manaus – a city
with no major soccer team to fill it. With
an estimated price tag of $3.2 billion,
the stadium will be host to four World
Cup matches and a very uncertain future.
Advocates of such lavish spending, of
course, argue that large sporting events
have dramatic impacts on tourism and
the national economy as a whole. Sports
economist David Coates, however, questions the validity of such speculation,
pointing out that even the 2006 World
Cup in Germany – universally considered
a resounding success – failed to have any
significant impact on the German economy. Beyond this debate, many members of Brazil’s working class worry that
they will pay the price for these sporting
events while reaping none of the benefits.
The 2014 World Cup alone is expected to