FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has admitted Brazil’s preparations for the 2014 World Cup are behind schedule.
Hosting football’s showpiece event for the second time, the South American nation have fallen behind with the transport system, as well as stadiums, still far from ready.
Valcke said the host nation was playing catch-up for the tournament, which is due to begin on June 13, 2014.
“There is a lot of work to deliver. We don’t have stadiums, we don’t have airports, we don’t have a national transportation system in place and we are one month away from the preliminary draw,” he told the Inside World Football Forum in Moscow on Friday.
“The Maracana is definitely not currently a World Cup stadium and that’s why it’s closed. It will be ready at the last minute, a few months maybe, even a few weeks before the tournament, if they don’t speed up the process.”
The Frenchman said progress was so far behind that one of the stadiums, the Estadio do Morumbi in Sao Paulo, would not be ready to host the 2013 Confederations Cup.
“In Sao Paulo, the main city in Brazil, they will not even be able to play the Confederations Cup in 2013 because the stadium will not be ready,” Valcke said.
“In South Africa the main goal was to show the world that Africa could organise a World Cup. In Brazil, in a way the main issue is to win it. Otherwise they will talk about failure.”
But Brazil’s Local Organising Committee deny Valcke’s claims.
Communications director Rodrigo Paiva said everything was on track, other than the Estadio do Morumbi.
“All the works are on schedule, one that we still have some concern is that of Sao Paulo,” he told Folha de S Paulo.
