With the Rio Olympics just seven months away, another issue is beginning to rise to the surface: a dispute between the state government and concessionary staff at the Maracana Stadium.
The concessionary company – which owns the vendors and concessions stands within the Maracana Stadium – laid off 75% of its permanent employees this week in what the company termed as a “planned measure” attempting to “adapt to the impacts of unilateral change of the concession agreement,” according to a translated version of this Globo.com piece.
The stadium concessionary company came to an agreement with the city of Rio de Janeiro allowing the city to use the stadium for this summer’s Olympic Games, but several clauses of the agreement have since fallen through. The original plan was to demolish the Celio de Barros Stadium and the Julio Delamare Aquatic Complex in order to build a shopping area and add further parking. But according to Espacodofla.com, Governor Sergio Cabral vetoed those demolitions, and the aquatic center in particular moved from a scheduled demolition to a scheduled renovation, with plans to host the Olympic water polo events. (The renovations have since fallen behind schedule enough that water polo will not be held at the facility).
The loss of that vending space now has the concessionary company projecting much lower profits. In addition to firing three quarters of its employees, the company also gave an ultimatum to the local government, per the globo.com story, threatening to perhaps refuse to let the city use the stadium in the Olympics if further terms of the agreement are not met.
The Maracana stadium is slated to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympic Games.
Comment from a skeptikal Brazilian:
I did not support Rio candidature but I am absolutely sure it will happen and it will be felt well organized by most athletes and visitors.
Brazilians are the people who should be mad with all these issues. Money from tax payers are going to corrupted pockets. Hundreds of millions. Maybe billions.
It’s true that some things are not going to happen as expected but is likely that 99% of athletes and visitors will enjoy a lot the city.
Absolutely no chance of cancellation of the games.
I imagine it will all end up okay in the end. Delhi managed it for the Commonwealth Games in 2010 (many, many, many problems in the lead up to the Games), Sochi managed it (even if some people got locked in their own toilets, stray dogs, oh-my-god-i-cant-list-them-all), etc.
I am sorry that Brazil is having to pay though, and hope somehow everyone benefits (not just the corrupt pockets).
Even in London 2012 we had huge worries and concerns about transport, security, costs, etc. BUT it all turned out okay for participants and visitors!
The legacy questions only start in earnest some time later …..
It should be good, can’t wait!
The IOC itself is going to have to pony up some serious cash to make this thing viable and decent. They may even put the arm in the wealthier nations to “loan” the IOC and or the Brasilians money. This also be a calculated move by Brazil to get out of paying their agreed upon fees.
The IOC is just as bad as FIFA – guess they will finally have egg on their face to awarding the games to a country that is economically in the toilet. Someone needs to check the bank accounts of the IOC members, or someone in Brazil has the photos.
Up until now I’ve (naively) been kind of under the impression that Rio has just been terribly, but mistakenly, set up. Like, it was a stupid idea to allow Rio to host anyway, but the organisers have just messed up. However this just seems now to be too much and I’m beginning to wonder if this wasn’t something that was deliberately calculated by Brazil. Who knows
hgreqg – it’s important to remember, before hatching conspiracy theories, that Brazil is a very, very different place than it is now. The primary of which is that the price oil and gas has tanked. Oil and gas makes up something like 13% of Brazil’s GDP. What’s more, the state run oil company is under investigation in a massive corruption scheme.
Which is not to say that without that problem, Rio2016 would just be on easy street. However, the money issues are exacerbating the existing issues in Brazil.
I heard there was a bit of a budget snafu and food funding is insufficient. Also Space Disk is totally cancelled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TICjEsvC8o
Think about poor Tokyo with NK testing a 5.2 richter scale nuke just across the sea. Then there are the ghost ships with skeletons turning up on the coast . Japan says lost NK fishing boats / others dare whisper result of nuclear radiation which could be from either NK or Japan .
Coach – you can really start worrying now .
Pre -nuke of course . Like a pre-nup but it does put Rio into perspective temporarily .
Concerned about the health and welfare of all athletes who will converge on Rio in a few months.
Stadiums there are plenty on Brazil which has superb (even better than Maracanã) structure,but as none of them are goverment funded (no room for large corruption).
To change soccer place would be easy, but..
If they really wanted, stadiums like Allianz Parque (no goverment money), Arena da Baixada, Castelao, Beira-Rio, Dunas, Mineirao could be used.
Any chance SwimSwam would be willing to *hypothetically* explore the repercussions of the Rio Olympics falling apart/not happening? Either if the Olympic Committee decided at the last second to remove it, or everyone shows up and everything was just a projected image? Like, would they suddenly ask China to hold it again, or would they hold one next year?
As someone who has been an official at Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London; and a visitor to LA & Barcelona; let me advise you …… it’s too late to reverse course and try and relocate the entire show to another city and stage it next year.
These are the three scenarios that are viable:
1. Somehow prop up the Rio organisation so that it can go ahead. Probably the most likely
2. Let’s call the who thing off !! Not out of the question but not a popular one
3. “Re-distribute” the various sports individually to whatever cities who may be put on a championships for that sport (with IOC coughing in major $$) and label that the Olympic… Read more »
This keeps getting better and better… The IOC is going to need to throw bucketloads of cash at this thing to keep it even halfway on the rails.