After the shocking, humiliating meltdown of Brazil in the World Cup, it is time to reflect about the cost the average Brazilero had to endure.

The organisation of the World Cup was expected to bring in billions of dollars to Brazil’s economy. Many Brazilians thought that good times were soon to return. Many who have scraped around for work thought opportunities would abound.

Many argued that the initial outlay of new roads, airport modernisation projects, telecommunications infrastructure, security infrastructure as well as the stadiums built would be worth it in the long term. The event did indeed bring jobs and improvements to the country’s infrastructure.

The whole event created 710,000 temporary and permanent jobs and fans alone are estimated to have spent $13 billion.

Most Brazileros came to realise that the whole World Cup event did not belong to them but to the foreigners and close allies of FIFA

On top of that, the coverage of many Brazilian cities hosting the matches was seen as an opportunity to position themselves as attractive destinations to potential investors and tourists now and in the future.

But not everything has quite turned out that advantageous. Few were the lucky ones who were able to secure an official World Cup job. Within, outside and around the official stadia or arenas dispersed around Brazil, only official FIFA partners were allowed to hock their wares.

This was also the case for fast food and beverages outlets. For example; outside the Sao Paulo stadium, roughly 600 outlets were given permission to sell ice packs and soft drinks. The street vendors, small companies, entrepreneurs and workers in general were left empty handed.

Most Brazileros came to realise that the whole World Cup event did not belong to them but to the foreigners and close allies of FIFA. To rub salt in their wounds, prices for tickets to watch the games were high, so many people could not afford to buy tickets to watch football matches.

Prior to the event, 61 per cent of Brazilians had already felt that hosting the World Cup would be too big a burden to carry for their country. All across Brazil, popular committee groups from Rio de Janeiro to Belo Horizonte and beyond had sprung up. Protests had raged in the last year. Most were of the belief that although the tournament was a source of income for Brazil, only the well-connected few would benefit.

A sore issue in the organising of the event was the spiralling costs of building new stadia across the country to host matches. Promotional literature released by the Brazilian government put expenditure in terms of funds, loans and credit lines from the public purse for stadium projects at $3.5 billion. But in fact, the price escalated to $4.2 billion. This is equivalent to more than three times South Africa’s total in 2010.

The whole event turned out to be over-budget and has resulted in a series of revelations about gross overbillings and multi-billion dollar financial scandals.

In order to build some of the stadia, people had to be evicted from their homes to make way for projects related to the World Cup.

In Sao Paulo alone, there was the “pacification” of favelas, where police forcibly occupied some of the poorer neighbourhoods in the city. And this was not exclusive to Sao Paulo.

To be fair, a multitude of grievances, not all directly related to the World Cup, drove this discontent.

These included rising transport prices, higher living costs and housing concerns. There was also frustration among the general population with the inadequate provision of social services, the high inflation rates and an increase in the prices of basic consumer goods, which are already heavily taxed (at 27 per cent).

The malaise also included high taxes that do not benefit the poor.

The average Brazilian citizen is estimated to pay 40.5 per cent of his income in taxes. Yet still, the country suffers from various social and infrastructural problems such as poorly functioning health services, a low education rate, inadequate welfare benefits and a decreasing but still high rate of unemployment.

The big question protesters were asking was: Why has an emerging nation been spending billions on hosting a football tournament when that money could be better directed towards alleviating poverty?

Most protestors affirmed that the World Cup re-enforced the existing logic that rules in Brazil: that of benefiting big businesses (FIFA included) and the small elite who occupy the top of the social pyramid, while shying away from the serious problems of social inequality in the country. Fairness and equality were and still are at the heart of these concerns. The World Cup may well have created a platform for groups and people who were dissatisfied with the way Brazil was developing to unite and make their voices heard.

Weeks prior to the event, teachers, metro workers and bus drivers went on strike demanding better pay and conditions. Others took to the streets to campaign for better housing. Their opposition to the World Cup was based on principled rejection of spending decisions tied to what they regarded as an elitist, closed event.

The protest group’s final hope is that the anger felt by many Brazilians will have reached the watching world and provide lessons for future hosts of big sporting events, including the next two World Cup host countries.

A leader of such a protest group affirmed: “We hope our legacy will be to show to people in Russia, Qatar and maybe in other places that these events and the way they are organised (make it) impossible they will bring any benefits.”