Around the time of the protests in Brazil during the Confederations Cup, there were rumors that Brazil might possibly forfeit hosting the World Cup in 2014 due to safety issues. The thought was that the security and transportation infrastructures simply weren’t adequate enough to guarantee the safety of the majority of the millions that would attend.
While the Confederations Cup is over and the protests have died down, they did provide a glimpse of the very serious threats that exist in Brazil. Is it reasonable to fear that Brazil might have to forfeit the event? My girlfriend is Brazilian and she claims to know people “in the know” who are planning to make a very sad announcement in the next few months that the 2014 World Cup will be moving to the US. At the very least, she said that it would be impossible to hold any games in Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paolo.
While I typically roll my eyes at such types of conspiracy theories, it does seem to be a fair question, considering the plethora of articles in the media about Brazil’s issues in general, and specific problems in dealing with such a huge event.
Won’t happen. There were similar “doom and gloom” predictions about Athens and the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Even if Brazil did have to pull out (say, because of a massive earthquake), I don’t see the other countries rallying about moving it to the USA. Maybe a Mexico/USA combination bid (throw in some Caribbean countries while you’re at it), but I have a feeling such a bid would require that the final be played in Mexico City.
Yeah, I’m not understanding the reluctance to accept the U.S. as a viable standalone alternative should such an occasion arise. But while corruption in Brazil’s football world is among the world’s worst, moving the location of the WC at this late date is almost unimaginable.
I don’t think there’s any real possibility of it happening. All these fears about safety were raised about South Africa, but they proved to be unfounded and FIFA never showed any sign it even considered moving that World Cup. Even if it were to be moved, with less than a year to go, German or the UK would seem like better emergency hosts.
I think what you are seeing is the fantasies of US soccer fans (who would dearly love to see another World Cup in the USA and have talked about the possibility of the 2014 WC being relocated to the USA ever since they stopped talking about the 2010 WC being relocated to the USA) feeding the fantasies of those who support the social unrest in Brazil who would dearly love to see the World Cup relocated as it would be a major blow to the current Brazilian government.
More realistically I think there’s still a chance that the 2018 World Cup in Qatar may be relocated. Clearly the bid was corrupt (though FIFA it seems have ruled out relocating it for that reason) and it seems very likely they won’t be able to deliver a Summer World Cup as they promised. FIFA have come out strongly to say they now want a Winter World Cup in 2018, however there’s very strong opposition from the major European leagues and I’m not sure if even Blatter is powerful enough to overcome that.
There is some precedence in that Colombia were due to host the 1986 World Cup, but withdrew in 1983 and were replaced by Mexico. Part of the reason that Mexico were selected I believe was that they had hosted in successfully in 1970.
That’s also how Innsbruck got the 1976 Winter Olympics: Denver had been awarded the games but had to withdraw when the voters rejected a bond offering to fund the games. The IOC awarded the games to Innsbruck, which had hosted them 12 years before, in 1964.
Getting back to the OP, I think that there’s little chance of a change, unless you start seeing major social unrest in Brazil targeting the Cup. For example, if there start to be ongoing road blocks at the construction sites, flash mobs at Cup pre-events, riots, and so on. Fatalities at those events would likely trigger concern, especially if it was Brazilian security forces shooting protesters.
Every major sporting event triggers local protesters, arguing the money could better be spent elsewhere, and the events go on. I would think it would require much, much more than that to trigger a re-location.