Blatter “very pleased” with Brazil progress

FIFA president Sepp Blatter says he is “very pleased” with the progress made by the Brazil 2014 World Cup organising committee.

There have been claims that construction work on the selected tournament stadia was behind schedule and that planned infrastructural improvements within the host cities might not be completed in time for the big kick-off.

Those reports led to FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke claiming that the organisers needed “a kick up the backside”, but Blatter is in no doubt the World Cup is in good hands after sitting down with President Rousseff in Brasilia on Friday.

“The idea now is the federal government works together with FIFA to strengthen these ties and that it is best not to wait so long for the next meeting, since the last meeting we had with President Dilma was last year,” Blatter said after the meeting.

“President Dilma stated that all of the necessary guarantees for the World Cup will be delivered to Fifa. We were very pleased with the outcome of the meeting.”

Brazil last staged football’s biggest event back in 1950.