Source:
http://qz.com/98428/deceit-fra...
Somewhere between the first protest over transit fare hikes in Sao Paulo and president Dilma Rousseff's public address three weeks later, football and the Olympic Games found themselves swept into the heart of Brazilian anger.
The outcry had centered around failed social services, corruption, and misplaced expenditure. As the crowds grew from tens of thousand to a million-strong on June 20, Brazil's two biggest sporting show pieces—the 2014 World Cup football and the 2016 Olympic Games—were turned into symbols of everything wrong with the government and the country's elite.
On the day of the Confederations Cup (a preparatory event for 2014) semi-final, between Brazil and Uruguay in Belo Horizonte, 50,000 clashed with police a few miles from the stadium. In Brasilia, a peaceful yet more symbolic protest took place as the crowds kicked footballs over a police cordon—and toward the Congress.
Until Brazil's winter of discontent, most criticism in countries hosting football World Cups or the Olympics tended to emanate from a relatively small fringe group protesting escalating costs and tax burdens.
In Brazil, though, what the world saw was protest against the world's two biggest sporting events on a gigantic, unprecedented scale. On a scale that fittingly almost belonged to the dizzy perch that the Olympics and the World Cup occupy in the hierarchy of "eventism."
The roar of outrage against the World Cup has come from a nation tied into the sport, which writer Alex Bellos calls, "the strongest symbol of Brazilian identity." In Futebol; The Brazilian Way of Life, Bellos writes, "no other country is branded by a single sport ... to the extent that Brazil is by football."
The June demonstrations proved that Brazilians have put their beloved football in its place. Firmly behind what eventually matters more: education, jobs, health services, security.
Rousseff and FIFA president Sepp Blatter were booed during the Confederations Cup opening. The world's most celebrated footballer Pele was shouted down after his taped video message said, "Let's forget all of this mayhem that's happening in Brazil, all of these protests, and let's remember that the national team is our country, our blood." On social media, Reuters reported scathing responses: "Pele, your ignorance is in proportion with your footballing genius." "Go to the hospitals, take a bus with no security, then I want to see if you keep saying stupid things."
This month's consequences will play themselves out for Brazilians between now and kick-off 2014. The most beneficial fallout on the rest of world, though, could be if June 2013 calls time on the gargantuan size and cost of world sport's high-priced "mega-events" particularly in developing nations and their growing economies.
It is no coincidence that in the last five years the "BRICS" nations have either bid for or hosted mega sporting events.
• Brazil [B] will host the World Cup and the Olympics
• Russia [R] will host the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Cup football
• India [I] staged the 2010 Commonwealth Games, bid for the 2014 Asian Games and, despite its weak footballing structures, is once again bidding for the under-17 World Cup football.
• China [C] hosted the 2008 Olympics
• South Africa [S] the 2010 World Cup football.
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