Mineirão

In our second week in Belo Horizonte, we took a visit to Mineirão, the famous soccer stadium in Pampulha, that will host games during the 2014 World Cup.  The stadium, newly renovated, was very beautiful and grand.

In the very same room where press conferences will be occurring after the World Cup games, we heard a lecture about the planning involved with and the politics behind preparing for this grand event.  Our presenter told us that Mineirão was on time with renovations and that planning and infrastructure changes on such a large scale will be a great learning experience for Brazil to grow from.

While these experiences may help Brazil in organization and planning, there are some doubts about how the World Cup will impact the economy in the long term.  Our presenter assured all of us that Brazil was going to benefit financially due to these games because rather than building excessive, unnecessary stadiums, hotels, and transit systems in order to receive those who are coming for the games, Brazil is already in desperate need of these infrastructure changes.  The idea is that, rather than creating a huge bubble to fill with the influx of tourists and having it collapse once the tourists all leave, this growth is already necessary for Brazil.

For example, once the games are over, many of the hotels will be converted into office spaces, and many of the new taxis are already necessary for the city.  In this sense, the funding from the games can be seen as a way to receive the funding necessary to expand the infrastructure of a nation that is already experiencing growing pains.

While past experiences shows us that in most cases, the World Cup leaves a country with less financial gain than initially anticipated, Brazilians remain quite optimistic that this is not the case for their country. I am very curious to see what happens within the next few years after the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics have been completed and the dust has settled.