Brazil hopes that the 2014 World Cup will boost its image, but the country’s football federation is shrouded in sleaze

Want to really exterminate the evil in football? Start by cleaning the stables at FIFA, the most corrupt and arrogant sports organization in the World. The steep slope of FIFA's power started with Havelange (Mr Teixeira's ex in-law) who brought corruption and greed in football management to a level never imagined before.

Start the job by ousting and incarcerating Mr Blatter. Just a little investigation on his dealings will provide enough material for that.

Truths that you may not know about Brazil.

The works for the World Cup, probably, were delayed as much as possible and this is one reason: companies hiring in a matter of urgency (no bidding), thus favoring companies that helped them during election campaigns or their own businesses and relatives. Fact.
Ricardo Teixeira became president of CBF before the first directly elected president after the fall of military rule, and there it has today. He feels the owner of Brazilian soccer, is little sanding to the public only their affinities. Fact.
In Brazil it is forbidden to enter the alcoholic beverage in the stadiums, there are half-price for seniors and students. All this dislike FIFA (a sponsor of the World Cup is a beer company) and the Congress to accept the impositions of FIFA, is threatening our sovereignty (according to the president of the Organization of Lawyers of Brazil (OAB in Portuguese) ).
I believe the World Cup will not be a disaster, but will be at the expense of billions of money to public coffers.

Good luck to those who came to visit Brazil.

Who has more doubts about Brazil, my twitter: @ flaviotag

I really suggest reading the article "guest-ienlejl" linked above; It shows the true identity of Ricardo Teixeira, the so called "Senhor do Futebol" or "Dono da Copa do Mundo" here in Brazil. Shows how corrupt and deviant our football has become, they only care about how much money they will make taking our National Team to play on autocratic countries ruled by ruthless Dictators and so forth.

It is also interesting to note that here in Brazil the CBF also has power over the National Championships (Brasileirão Série A, B, C e D) since no club is brave enough to say no to this shameful reign and create a league of teams to organize the championships.

As Romário, the ex-football player and now a member of our Câmara dos Deputados -some sort of Parliament- says: "The World Cup will be in Brazil, but won't be for brazilians". A sad but true reality.

Some excerpts of the article shows the real Brazil, not only regarding to the World Cup: a corrupt, mismanaged and boastful country where public issues are treated as private. Mr. Teixeira threatening BBC is a good example of this affirmation.

Havelange's years at the head of FIFA also brought unprecedented money, exposure, money, fame, and money to that organization as well as all other components of worldwide soccer, particularly in the second, third, and fourth worlds.

It would be great if a sports organization could lead a world-wide anticorruption movement. But we are a world that idolizes sports heroes and then expects them to be paragons, above the temptations that the rest of us have to deal with. It very seldom works 100% even with tight policing. Bad money drives out good, scandals grow geometrically as the money gets bigger, and money is at the bottom (or top) of every scandal. Just consider the influence of gambling.

President Rouseff is doing the right thing, keeping the pressure on for honesty, downplaying infrastructure expectations to the range of what is feasible, and exposing, or going around, the big players who think they are above her and the government

You can read the "Piauí" Magazine article here (in english)http://revistapiaui.estadao.com.br/edicao-58/the-faces-of-futebol/the-president

Brazil's economy is growing at a quickening pace. With the World Cup in 2014 just a few years away, it has the potential to bring millions of dollars into the economy and raise money to further develop the country as a whole. It would be a shame to have such scandal surrounding Teixeira and Havelange, overshadow this amazing gathering of the world's most competitive football athletes. The World Cup unites thousands every four years and develops a strong sense of nationalism within each participating country's citizens. Hopefully preparation for this momentous occasion will be completed, and Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff will oversee another successful FIFA tournament.

And unfortunately nothing about Mr. Lula's role in this case. Does anyone really believe that the world cup in Brazil was a matter of recognizing?
All, I say ALL the arenas that are being built in Brazil are OVERPRICED. We DON'T have airports to support this kind of event. The brazilian government will contract companies in a urgency regime just to pass more money to contractors, and this contractors will pass more money to federal government's parties on 2012 and 2014's elections.
A world cup is the most efficient way to implant a "corruptocracy" in third world countries, although Lula had implanted it more successfully than ever during his government (we have never ever had in the history of this country a corrupt president and party as lula's workers party).
Do you know that our institutions responsible for expenditures control are being occupied by workers' party "friends" to avoid finding the overpriced infrastructure projects.
Our education is below any acceptable level, health policies are dead, etc, etc, etc... Do we really need this kind of event? For Lula and others, yes.

Ricardo Teixeira is a National Cancer and needs to be extirpated!

I love football. I watch at least 4 games per week and whenever my favorite team comes to São Paulo it is a sacred agenda.
On July 2014 I know that I can be anywhere but in Brazil.

May God help the fans that will be coming to Mr Teixeira´s trap.

Oh God! The British still moaning because they lost the bid for the 2016 World Cup. I’m not going to defend the football ruling elite because they are all, and I mean ALL, corrupt to the core, but I also find it silly and hypocritical to engage in this vendetta.

This is clearly a fight between different Mafiosi.

"A FIFA investigation cleared Mr Teixeira of Lord Triesman’s allegations."

How shockingly unexpected! I must however believe that Mr Bladder (or what was his name again) is pushing very hard to re-open these investigations.

@alexm4:

"The World Cup unites thousands every four years and develops a strong sense of nationalism within each participating country's citizens. Hopefully preparation for this momentous occasion...!"

It is an ugly game with many ugly supporters. My hope each time is that England will go out ASAP to reduce the level of nonsense I will have to tolerate; I dread what we might see on our streets if England win.

Only football fans could so childishly cling to the notion it is "the beautiful game".

Sepp Blatter deserves to lose his position as the head of FIFA. With all of the accusations and evidence of scandal which has surrounded his tenure there, I'm really surprised he still has a job. Not only that but he is also way behind other sports when it comes to technology. Every other major sport in the world, uses some type of technology and instant replay to make sure the games are officiated correctly. However, Blatter I guess wants to keep the tradition of making wrong calls and allowing teams to be awarded unfair goals, or for a team to miss out on a legitimate goal, i.e. england vs germany.

Most Brazilians want the Ricardo Teixeira out of the CBF as soon as possible. The pressure is increasing; I expect that to happen before the world cup, because this man is corrupt.

As a Brazilian expat, I am offended by the government's revisionist claims that the transportation infrastructure projects are not necessary for the success of the tournament, when they are in fact essential for the further economic development of the country. My hometown of Recife, like most host cities, is plagued by gridlocks. I also think it is rather naive to say that Ms. Rousseff is trying to clean up government, when all of her sackings of Cabinet members were in reaction to the outing of their illicit activities in weekly news magazines. That Ms. Rousseff served as Chief of Staff during Lula's administration should be the clearest indicator that she has no interest whatsoever in proactively ridding the country of the corruption deeply entrenched in its government.

In the meantime, the credit bubble keeps growing...

Brazil’s economy has been struggling for a while and the World Cup of 2014 isn’t doing much to help. However, the world cup will bring millions of dollars to their economy which will allow the country to further develop. It would be a shame if Teixeira and Havelage were to minimize the pleasure that come along with the world cup by having everyone focus on scandal. This World Cup brings the world together in one country, where everyone can put their differences aside and cheer on their teams.

Soccer is a sport where there will always be corruption. From the mafia fixing Italian matches to FIFA president Blatter himself, soccer is too popular of sport for corruption not to be attracted to it. However, this should have no affect on the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Brazil's economy is on the rise and will prosper even more after the largest sporting event comes to their nation. Brazil will most likely 'not be prepared' by the time the World Cup comes around in 2014 but that will have no affect on the money they will make out of the event. No matter how bad the stadiums or the airports are in 2014, the only thing people care about is soccer. Of course there will be corruption in the management positions but that will have no affect on the field and that the only thing that matters (to me).

I knew soccer was a big deal in Brazil, but I had no idea it led to such severe corruption and scandals. But I'm totally not surprised that these problems were stemming from a stellar sports team. Even in Brazil's soccer team weren't that great, examples of cheating and corruption can be seen in ANY sports team anywhere. There's always someone who wants a little extra cut of the profits; what do you think NFL players were fighting for this offseason. They just tried to get the money without stealing it. But this really doesn't look good for Brazil considering the World Cup and the Olympics.

As much as I enjoy watching football, especially the World Cup, I was not aware that this kind of corruption was going on. Brazil is gaining both economical and state recognition around the world but with a scandal like this all of that could be affected. Also, if they want the World Cup to be successful their going to have to make major adjustments and start working on the project they have planned if that it might cause them to loss all of the recognition they are getting worldwide.