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Brazil president backs bid to host 2014 World Cup

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 3 (Reuters) - Brazil president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised on Monday to back the country's bid to host the 2014 World Cup.

'Football is the greatest passion in the country and it deserves to host the World Cup,' he said after a meeting with Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) president Ricardo Teixeira in Brasilia.

'I will give all the backing necessary to Ricardo Teixeira so that, 64 years on, we can hold the World Cup in Brazil.'

'It's unbelievable that a country which has won the World Cup five times and which, during decades, has had the best team in the world, has not brought another World Cup here.'

Brazil, five-times winners of the World Cup, have only hosted the competition once, in 1950.

South America is due to host the 2014 World Cup under FIFA's rotation system, which begins in Africa in 2010, and Brazil is the only country on the continent which has said it wants to hold the event.

In 2003, the football federations of the other nine South American countries voted at a meeting in Asuncion to back Brazil as their only candidate.

However, successfully hosting a World Cup would require a huge amount of work.

Brazil's stadiums, mostly dating from the 1950s and 1960s, are generally in a decrepit state while domestic football suffers from chronic financial difficulties, sometimes chaotic administration and crowd violence.

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FIFA inspectors Thursday recommended Brazil's bid to host the 2014 World Cup, saying the country is capable of staging an "exceptional" tournament.

Soccer's governing body will announce the tournament host Tuesday, and Brazil is the only candidate. The inspection report was sent to FIFA's executive committee.

sre141

Oct 25 2007, 03:23 PM

That World Cup isn't for another 7 years, I'm sure they'd come up with something.

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Brazil were today formally appointed hosts of the 2014 World Cup and now face the daunting task of building or completely refurbishing every single one of their stadia for the tournament.

FIFA's inspection report has identified 18 grounds with more than 40,000 capacity that could host matches and these will be whittled down to nine or 10.

However, of the 18 four would have to be built from scratch and all of the other 14 undergo substantial renovation.

FIFA inspectors said the Brazilian football federation had estimated £550million (1.1billion US dollars) as the budget for building and renewing the grounds but that figure appears very optimistic.

So basic are the facilities at the moment that most of the stadia are not even equipped for television commentary.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said however that he had been impressed by Brazil's plans for 2014 despite the fact they were the only bidders.