CUIABA (BDCi) – As the World Cup winds down, many are left to wonder what will become of the brand new costly stadiums once the hundreds of thousands of fans have left Brazil.
The Arena Pantanal in Cuiaba, which cost $260 million to build, was able to fill 40,000 seats for the Chile – Colombia match. Its next game for Brazil’s third division championship is expected to attract around 4,000 fans.
Cuiaba, along with Brasília, Manaus and Natal, are not big soccer cities and do not have club teams of their own. The source of current protests, many feel that the millions of dollars spent on these four stadiums should have gone towards schools, hospitals and public transportation, which are all in dire need of renovations.
Brazil spent about 80 percent of its public money ($4 billion) on erecting or fixing the 12 host city stadiums, and its total bill for the 2014 World Cup is roughly $11.5 billion.
Also hindering the sales of tickets for these venues is the rising price of the tickets themselves. The cost of a ticket at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro has gone up some 30 times within the past nine years.
Owners do what they can and post online ads to showcase the venues as multi-functional and capable of hosting cultural events and conventions.
By: Diego Díaz Source: AP Photo: Google 11 July 2014
09:25 a.m. P.D.T.