Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has defending the budget for the World Cup and claims that the country is ready both on and off the field for an exciting few weeks of football, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists and millions of fans around the world.
Rousseff claimed the pessimists had been crushed due to the determination of the Brazilian people, although protests continue in the capital and in other areas of Brazil. People continue to protest over the $11 billion spending budget for the World Cup and Metro strikes are being threatened if the government doesn’t cooperate.
Brazil has had a hard yet focusing on the World Cup with all of the protests, alongside delays and issues with stadiums. The Arena de Sao Paulo will be used on the opening day match Brazil vs Croatia, but pictures of the stadium show work is still being done to finish it up for Thursday’s match.
One of the major questions asked is how much spending has been cut in areas like education and health for the World Cup, President Rousseff said spending was higher in those areas than it was on the World Cup, although this still doesn’t answer the question of whether spending was cut in those sectors to pay for the World Cup.
Metro strikes are the worst problem the Brazilian government have to deal with, considering the amount of transit football fans will take on the Metro and how detrimental a strike would be on the opening week of the World Cup. Transport becomes a fundamental necessity and if tourists don’t have any route to get to another stadium it might ruin their experience.
In defense of the World Cup being a one time event, President Rousseff said the infrastructure built for the World Cup will be used for many years to come and will continue to be valuable in the economy. This is another criticism thrown at the World Cup in Brazil, but the government are trying to neutralise all forms of argument before Thursday.
