A senior FIFA official said Tuesday that there was no doubt that the opening game of the 2014 World Cup will take place as planned in Sao Paulo's Corinthians stadium currently under construction.
"We don't have any doubt that the opening of the World Cup will take place in the Corinthians stadium," Fulvio Danilas, FIFA general manager, told reporters here.
Danilas was part of a joint team of 40 experts from football's world governing FIFA body and Brazil's Local Organizing Committee (LOC) that began a tour of six of the 12 cities that will stage World Cup games: Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Cuiaba, Manaus and Natal.
Sao Paulo was the team's first stop for a look at progress in the construction of the 65,000-seat Corinthians arena which began last May with a year's delay and should be finished at the end of next year.
The FIFA-led team refused to comment on the row sparked by comments from FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke Friday suggesting that the Brazilian organizers of the 2014 World Cup needed a "kick up the backside."
"I am sorry to say but things are not working in Brazil," Valcke added. "You have to push yourself, kick your arse and just deliver this World Cup and that is what we will do."
His comments drew a sharp rebuke from Brazil, with Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo saying Valcke would not longer be welcome as a FIFA spokesman.
"This is a working visit," Danilas said here.
The FIFA-LOC team members donned white helmets to tour the sprawling construction site, a $463 million dollar project undertaken by Brazil's engineering and construction giant Odebrecht.
"The work is 29 percent complete," Frederico Barbosa, Odebrecht operations manager, told AFP. "The foundations have been laid. The outer structures are up. Everything is going according to plan."
The FIFA experts are monitoring operational planning for the stadiums, including transportation, information technology, security, access for the public and media facilities.
Last September, they inspected the six other Brazilian arenas that will host World Cup games: Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Salvador and Recife.
FIFA has for months expressed varying degrees of concern over the extent to which preparations -- renovation or construction of stadiums as well as infrastructure projects -- are on track for the first World Cup in Brazil since 1950.
Source: AFP
