The local sentiment had already pronounced it: i Brazil 2014 World Cup i'm a flop. A drain on public finances, a favor to sponsors and the powerful, and above all a missed opportunity for the majority of the population who have found neither work nor advantages there.
This is confirmed by several economic and financial studies, in addition to the well-known protests (peaceful and otherwise) of the Brazilians who took to the streets in an attempt to ruin the "party". Not least that of Euler Hermes, an international commercial credit insurance company, according to which the soccer World Cup and the Olympics scheduled in two years' time in Rio de Janeiro will be worth - together - just 0,2 points of GDP for the now former South American locomotive.
In fact, the Brazilian economy has already experienced a sharp downsizing in recent times: after the boom of 2010, when with a growth of 7,5% it became the sixth world power, the first letter of the acronym Brics (by now also largely out of date) no longer knows how to grow. In the first three months of 2014 it gained only 0,2% on a quarterly basis (European country ranking), which gives a +1,9% on an annual basis, destined in the year-end forecasts to further slow down to +1,8 % despite the organized Mundial.
If in any case, in proportion to the expected growth of 1,8, two tenths of a point are not so few, it must also be said that according to Euler Hermes everything will be balanced byinflation, expected to rise sharply to 6,3%: cost of living therefore rising, while the jobs created will vanish within a few months.
Yes, because the creation of job opportunities, in a country with many areas still afflicted by poverty and with an increasingly corrupt political system, is one of the illusions of the World Cup. Just think of the question of stadiums, in particular what saw - last Saturday - the entry of Italy against England. The Amazonia Arena, which like many other facilities so far has not even been filled with fans, will end up becoming a "white elephant", as John Oliver himself said in charge of the Fifa report: cost $ 270 million, won't see many more goals after Balotelli's as the Amazonian city, so remote it can't even be reached by car, doesn't even have a football team.
It is said that the facility will be converted into a prison, costing a decidedly expensive one at that point, for a country that has already spent 11 billion dollars to organize the World Cup. More than jobs, it will therefore create – at most – places of detention, perhaps to be assigned to some of the perpetrators of crime due to growing hardship.
And if the real economy is crying, neither are the financial markets. Until a week ago, the Bovespa di San Paolo index had gained 7% since the beginning of the year, which however are only a small recovery of the -24% recorded in 2013, when equities collapsed after reaching a record level at the beginning of 2012. As for Brazilian government bonds, on the other hand, they are certainly tempting, but only because they make between 6 and 7% and this is certainly not synonymous with reliability.
It therefore seems that the real game of Brazil 2014 and the success of the Rio Olympics is to play above all on image: if things go well from an efficiency point of view (and so far this is not exactly the case), the green-and-gold giant will make everyone think again those who question its political reliability. If then he were to also win the Seleçao, there is no doubt that this would be a even extraordinary driving force for the October elections, raising the possibility of an encore by Dilma Rousseff.
But the greatest impact, according to Euler Hermes, is that “the World Cup will have at least had the merit of bringing the country's contradictions to light, highlighting its social unhappiness beyond the showcase of the event. This could convince the ruling class to implement profound structural reforms, which would indeed be the real boom effect of the Mundial".
