Amid concerns at delays in the preparation of stadiums in Brazil that will stage the 2014 World Cup, a FIFA team touring the Porto Alegre arena has been assured that renovation work will resume next week after an eight-month break.
"We are presenting all our infrastructure projects and we guarantee that work in the (Beira-Rio) arena will restart next week," Kalil Sehbe, the sports secretary in Rio Grande do Sul state, told local media.
Officials of Internacional, the football club that owns the stadium, said they were committed to signing a contract before next Tuesday with the Andrade Gutierrez conglomerate to resume the work.
Before that happens, the construction company still must guarantee financing by the Rio Grande do Sul state bank Banrisul, which is to loan $116.5 million equivalent to 62 percent of the cost of the project.
"We are fully confident that the contract will be signed. We are optimistic that the issue will be resolved in the coming days," said Ricardo Trade, executive director of Brazil's Local Organizing Committee (LOC).
The renovation of the Porto Alegre stadium should be finished in December.
Trade is part of a team of 40 experts from FIFA and LOC that Tuesday began a six-day tour of six of the 12 cities that will host World Cup Games in 2014.
The six cities are: Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Cuiaba, Manaus and Natal.
FIFA has for months complained about delays in renovation or construction of stadiums as well as infrastructure projects for the first World Cup in Brazil since 1950.
Legendary Brazilian striker Ronaldo admitted Wednesday that FIFA chief Jerome Valcke was right to highlight the problems plaguing organisers of the 2014 World Cup in the country.
FIFA general secretary Valcke infuriated Brazil when he said that the organising committee needed "a kick up the backside" if they were to get building work back on schedule, two years out from the global showpiece.
"Valcke has already apologised to the Brazilian people. The way he made his criticisms was regrettable, but that is not to say that he wasn't right," Ronaldo told Bandeirantes TV in Sao Paulo.
"Brazil is late in infrastructure work, there are a lot of things which are behind schedule," added Ronaldo, who is a high-profile member of the organising committee.
Meanwhile, lawmakers have postponed until next week a vote on a bill sought by FIFA since 2007 that would notably lift a ban on beer sales in stadiums during the World Cup, according to congressional sources.
Candido Vaccarezza, the government leader in the lower house, said the delay would allow lawmakers more time to study the text, which must be endorsed by both houses of Congress before being signed by President Dilma Rousseff.
Sales of alcoholic beverages in sports arenas have been banned in Brazil since 2003, but the bill would create an exception, allowing beer to be sold in plastic cups at World Cup matches.
FIFA has an agreement with its sponsor, the US-based Anheuser-Busch brand Budweiser, and prohibiting beer sales would cut into the football organization's revenues from the games.
The bill would also authorize 300,000 low-cost tickets for students and underprivileged recipients of the government's welfare programs.
Source: AFP
