Dark questions haunt world’s greatest show

In a press centre in Salvador last week, a couple of British writers announced their arrival to the tournament — heard long before they were seen, such is the way many journalists conform to stereotype.

They took a glance around at the impressive layout, sampled the overpriced food, tested the internet speed and came to a conclusion at a nearby desk. This was a great set-up and it would, by extension, be a great World Cup. And that’s a major problem when judging all of this.

It’s those within the press centres that project the image of these five weeks to the rest of the planet yet these clinical and stale places aren’t a representation of a competition more complex than ever, due to the differing strands running right through it.

Indeed when 300 Chilean fans burst into the media compound at the Maracanã on Wednesday, taking a wall with them as they tried to reach seats without tickets, there was a general sense of surprise and shock at how this could happen. But there was something apt and oddly appropriate about that entire incident. If the media won’t go to see what the true meaning of this World Cup is for many people, then the chaos came right to them.

To be fair, from several vistas that were potentially ugly just weeks ago, the scene is now glorious. The fear about incomplete and untested stadia in the run-up to the tournament was justified, especially when you consider the temporary stand at the Itaquerão hadn’t been trialed before being met with a wall of emotion during the opening game, and when you recall the Fonte Nova in Salvador was filled with men in welding goggles as sheet metal was shunted about a day before the Netherlands-Spain. But all the grounds haven’t just looked spectacular, they’ve held the spectacular.

We’re only midway through the first round and we’ve had the shock of Spain, the football of the Netherlands, the goals of Van Persie and Robben and Cahill, the genius of Neymar and Messi under the most ferocious of pressure that creates diamonds, and a general sense of a once-in-a-lifetime occasion whenever you’re fortunate enough to be around a South American side. It’s been so good that it can be hard to see past the football but it’s vital to occasionally do that if you’re to give a wide and fair reflection of this tournament as a whole. But the authorities are trying to make sure you don’t.

Back in the press centres, Brazilian officialdom are doing their best to erase opinions about lack of legacy and money poorly spent by handing out folders about why this is all so positive. A woman in the Mineirão in Belo Horizonte did just that the other day but things took a turn when you told her you live locally and instead of her fact book of questionable figures, you brought up some facts of your own. Her reaction suggested she hadn’t been questioned in her rounds and that’s a pity because for every on-field up in this competition, there have been off-field downs. Only few have seen them.

Not until the morning after Argentina-Bosnia did you stumble upon the trouble outside and the claims that police had fired live rounds to remove those exercising their democratic right, this after 10 members of the so-called Black Bloc that organises protests were arrested in the city before the tournament had even kicked-off.

In Belo Horizonte, there have been game-day protests in the centre but some photos sent to you showed how the police had enough. One person involved had a wound from a rubber bullet that dropped him to the ground and a chunk of missing skin on his back because, he said, six security officers gave him a hiding as he lay there. Sao Paulo has been a hot-spot for anger, ranging from metro workers to homeless. And across the country there is and always will be the thousands of families thrown from their homes to make way for tournament projects but that we can’t put an exact number on because of the government’s reluctance to release actual figures.

Of course there’s been another major issue emerging as well. Brazilian prosecutors yesterday opened a case against Latin America’s biggest construction company, Odebrecht, over their holding of 500 Brazilian workers in “slave-like” conditions in Angola. It’s far from the first claim made against them and their operations. But it’s sadly fitting that they are same company that have profited hugely from this tournament, having built many of the over-budget stadia. Such was their role in all of this that Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff posed with their workers after being presented with a gold hard hat in Sao Paulo not long ago. That they also happen to be one of the biggest contributors to political campaigns here explains a lot too.

But theirs is a case that surmises this tournament in many ways. What they’ve done has worked wonderfully, how they’ve done it though is open to huge and uncomfortable questions.

Just like the World Cup as a nation-changing event, it’s been wonderfully good, brutally bad and horrifically ugly.