Are you ready to host, Brazil?
IN BRAZIL, like SA, football is a national obsession. So much emotional attachment, capital and almost religious fanaticism are invested in football. In my visits I have seen that like in SA, football is a sporting religion of the masses.
As Brazilians prepare to host the next soccer World Cup in two and a half years, there are similarities between the challenges facing the Latin American nation and those SA faced.
Like SA, Brazil is a land of dramatic contrasts: first-world luxury and infrastructure live cheek by jowl with squalid shacks, a varied landscape of beautiful mountains like our Valley of a Thousand Hills in Kwazulu-natal and unspoilt beaches of Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and São Paulo look like our own in Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. Deserts and vineyards and wildlife preserves are just like our own.
Like SA before the World Cup, Brazil faces negative perceptions about its crime rate, particularly in the sprawling poor neighbourhoods, whether the stadiums will be completed on time and whether the nation should expect a financial windfall from hosting the world’s most popular sports tournament.
There are already groans about expected soaring travel and hotel costs, exorbitant food and beverage prices.
This is not surprising. As a global secular religion, soccer can divide and unite; it remains the most accessible and democratic of sports – there are few physical prerequisites and all that is required is a kickable round object.
However, there are jitters about airports that still need to be remodelled, hotels built, rail lines laid, ambitious stadiums constructed in different cities and whether the soccer fans will be safe.
Like with SA, the gloom and doom brigade are at work in Brazil. All of these perceptions will haunt Brazil until the first whistle in June 2014 and in some cases until the final whistle in the middle of July.
Security is a vital issue before and during any major sporting event. As it was shown in SA, the government can’t win the war against crime alone.
The fight against crime is the responsibility of every Brazilian.
Before the tournament, the SA government decided to make sure policing would be intensified and that crime would be nullified during the World Cup. In 2004 the SAPS launched a recruitment drive that resulted in about 55 000 new members by 2010.
Consequently, no serious or violent crimes against visitors were reported during the World Cup. Those policemen are still in uniform and their lasting legacy is that serious crime rates dropped by 5 percent in the last year.
Everyone needs to be a responsible citizen and work together. Civil society must also get involved.
For example, two years before kick-off, SA became one of the first countries to introduce SMS for crime tip-offs and the world followed. We also introduced very effective 24-hour courts to deal with World Cup-related crimes.
The innovations heartened South Africans and did much to dispel our visitors’ fears. Brazilians, too, should work to ensure that everyone is safe. Like SA, Brazil can use its established tourism culture and its sense of true local hospitality to deliver a world-class festival for all.
From the day SA won the right to host the World Cup, we lived in two different worlds: one in which there was informed opinion and one in which there was uninformed opinion; that is, opinion that is not managed.
We did not expect local and international media and even commentators to start off as praise singers but we did expect the media to report objectively. From my perspective, we were in the business of creating informed opinions, and as a result of that, deliver the tournament.
It meant defining a better understanding of what our objectives were and what the sceptics were trying to accomplish; or coming up with answers to the negative perceptions. We had to pointedly ignore the talk of a “Plan B” – for another country to host the tournament. Our job was to deliver the infrastructure, to deliver the tournament and let our work do the talking. That should be the case with Brazilians.
International experience has taught us that major international events often present a temptation for criminals to commit crime or terrorists to carry out their evil acts. We were steadfast in our security plans and were never distracted in our cause. Any type of deviant behaviour, be it criminality or talks of terrorism, was dealt with swiftly and with no mercy.
It would, however, be folly for any country to grandstand and proclaim that is immune to criminality.
We never responded to unsubstantiated reports and comments by faceless and spineless persons.
However, within hours of receiving any rumoured threat, we worked with the police to immediately unleash our intelligence to identify the credibility of such reports.
In terms of delivery on spectacular, state-of-the-art stadiums, airports, infrastructure and the World Cup enthusiasm and spirit, Brazil could do worse than try to emulate SA’S “can do” attitude.
Brazilians should remember that construction costs could never be static. For example, at the end, SA faced a total cost of R8.352 billion for the construction of five new stadiums and the renovation of a further five for the World Cup.
The cost was more than three and half times higher than the R2.3bn estimates made in 2004 when the country won its bid to become the first African host of the World Cup tournament.
However, every stadium was ready on time. Now they are regarded as among the best in the world – FNB Stadium is the biggest in Africa and seats 94 000 people.
Resource and infrastructure challenges will continue making headlines.
Like SA, Brazil must silence its critics and work hard to improve its transportation infrastructure, accommodation, security and communication, because these are the necessities in hosting a World Cup.
As we learnt in SA 2010, the fears, cynicism and scepticism could be proved groundless in 2014.
In SA, with more than $5 billion (R40.5bn) spent on preparations, the facilities were more than adequate.
Transportation and accommodation were abundant and the improvements here once again left an important legacy. SA’S major cities now boast functional multipurpose transport nodes where rail and road come together. Two of our international airports now boast new world-class terminals and Durban has a new state-of-the-art international airport. And our high-speed Gautrain – completed weeks before the tournament started – now connects the economic hub of Sandton to OR Tambo International Airport as well as the cities of Joburg and Pretoria.
2014 will no doubt be the greatest marketing event for Brazil. All the country needs is to ensure that the spin-offs will continue for years after the final whistle has blown. It is in every Brazilian’s interest to make the World Cup a success.
Rich Mkhondo was chief communications officer for the 2010 Fifa World Cup Organising Committee SA. This article first appeared in O’globo, Brazil’s biggest newspaper.