Brazil plays down delays in WCup preparations

Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo played down delays in Brazil’s preparations for the 2014 World Cup and in legislative approval of a bill regulating the top sporting event.

“The only thing that is not late in Brazil is a football match. The whistle goes off at the exact time. We will deliver the essential stadium projects and the urban mass transit in time for the 2014 World Cup,” the minister said.

FIFA has for months voiced concern over whether infrastructure projects and renovation or construction of stadiums are on track for the first World Cup in football-mad Brazil since 1950.

“We will carry out the task of staging the World Cup,” Rebelo said as he reviewed the main stadium projects in the 12 Brazilian cities that will host World Cup games,

He compared the World Cup preparations to a carnival parade.

“Whoever follows preparations for a samba school parade thinks it will not be ready, but every year it comes out on time and becomes an event of reference,” he said.

He also referred to the World Cup law currently blocked in the Chamber of Deputies.

“This delay will not affect the schedule,” Rebelo said and insisted that all the commitments to FIFA contemplated in the bill have already been guaranteed by the Brazilian government.

The bill sought by FIFA since 2007 would notably lift a ban on beer sales in stadiums during the World Cup.

The vote has been repeatedly postponed.