BRAZIL LOOKS set to back down in its standoff with Fifa over the organisation of the 2014 football World Cup following a meeting between President Dilma Rousseff and Fifa executives.
Speaking to the press yesterday after the hastily arranged talks in Brussels, Brazil’s sports minister Orlando Silva said the president was willing to make changes to the Bill currently before congress that will regulate the organisation of the tournament within the country.
The proposed law had upset Fifa, especially as it would have placed restrictions on ticket and alcohol sales. Mr Silva said the Bill’s text would be “improved in a way so that it remains clear that all the guarantees Brazil provided to Fifa are met”.
Brazil had sought to enforce a national law during the World Cup which gives students and pensioners the right to half price admission to games. Fifa claimed that in signing the contract to host the event Brazil had ceded it sole control over ticketing policy.
Fifa wants its sponsor Budweiser to be allowed to sell beer in stadiums hosting games. The sports minister defended moves to alter a Bill President Rousseff only sent to congress in August saying the World Cup was “a special event” and that the government would study “what Brazilian laws would be applied during these events of Fifa’s”.
Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke denied Fifa had threatened to move the tournament elsewhere if its demands were not met. “We always recognise national laws and regulations and we are going to work to ensure that the laws continue, but we have to recognise that the World Cup is a unique event.”