Will the Poverty and Lack of Organization Overshadow the World Cup?

Unfortunately, I do not believe so. The World Cup garners much attention from all corners of the world, last year, over 1 billion people tuned in to the World Cup Final(ESPN FC), to put that into perspective, the 2014 Super Bowl has about 111.5 million(ESPN) people tuned in. If you talk to a rational person, they would say yeah of course, 32 countries compete in World Cup, but try telling that to Americans who believe football is the best sport in the world, but that is neither here or there. The World Cup is very popular everywhere, in most countries younglings get a soccer ball for their 1st Birthday. So, on one of the biggest stages in the world, with everyone watching, why do we turn a blind eye that the World Cup brings with it. This photo has made its rounds recently on the web, and I believe this is the perfect picture that represents the ongoing problems Brazil was faced with.

Image representing the problems within Brazil

To me, this is just sad. The country started preparing for the World Cup years in advance, it takes mass amounts of capital to build stadiums, infrastructures and security to prepare for a World Cup. Brazil has spent a total of $11 Billion Dollars getting ready for the World Cup and they are only expected to make around $3Billion, the numbers just do not stack up. When a country whose economy has gradually slowed over the past couple years and social problems run amok in some of the biggest cities in the world, you would think $11 Billion Dollars could go to actually benefitting the country. Rio de Janeiro is home to one of the biggest Favela Communities in the world, it is so crazy big, that Brazil officials are unsure how many people actually live in the Favelas.

I mean this is crazy right? On top of all of those problems, migrant workers in Brazil have been dying due to the harsh conditions in building stadiums. It just begs the question, on such a big stage, why are Soccer Federations involved in the World Cup not putting pressure on FIFA to either make it easier to host a World Cup or work on social programs for these countries. Granted, Brazil is considered a BRIC nation and they have an emerging economy, but, the money could be used to better the lives of many Brazilians. I also believe that Brazilians agree, there have been massive protests all over the country, ticket prices are to steep and almost impossible for the average Brazilian to even enjoy the spoils of a World Cup. There have been signs like this one seen,

The World Bank estimates that there is still about 16% of the population lives in Poverty. Many Brazilians believe that the World Cup is taking away from Public Services and Healthcare. Now, let me tell you, Brazil is probably one of the homes of soccer, so to have about 76% of the population dissatisfied(per Pew Research Center) with hosting the World Cup is a big deal. To me, that means something should be done by FIFA. 

That's TJ's Take on the future of World Cups, you're up next Qatar