A portion of Itaquero Stadium in Sao Paolo, Brazil collapsed Wednesday when a crane fell on it, killing two workers and leaving a third hospitalized in serious condition. The stadium was meant to be the site of the World Cup’s opening match this summer.
Although Brazil’s 12 World Cup venues were due to be completed by the end of December, FIFA is yet to announce any plans for a venue change despite the recent collapse.
”It is too premature to make any detailed assessment on the situation of the Corinthians Arena as we are still awaiting the technical report to be able to evaluate the scale of the damage,” FIFA said in a statement sent to the Associated Press. ”We will be able to provide an update earliest next week following the FIFA Organising Committee of the FIFA World Cup.”
Despite the tragic nature of this event, it brings the topics of many Brazilian protests to the forefront of the news. A number of groups have complained about mistreatment of workers at the future World Cup sites, and this incident could be the fuel the movement needs to drum up some attention on the global stage. FIFA, meanwhile, issued a statement Wednesday that said the safety of its workers are of the utmost concerns.
With the current debacle of the 2022 Qatar World Cup continuing to unfold, it’s easy to forget about the turmoil that has gone in Brazil during the past few months. It will be interesting to see the responses by both the host nation and FIFA following this tragedy. It appears an interesting political climate in Brazil could have gotten a little more messy.
Gilda makes a valid point. Sure, FIFA needs to ensure the safety of its workers, but it is unfair to compare a crane crashing into a stadium to the human rights violations occurring in Qatar, events in which FIFA has the onus to act. Construction work of this magnitude is inherently dangerous (In fact, according to the United States OSHA, 775 workers were killed on the job during the calendar year 2012). While risk can be mitigated by limiting overtime hours and exercising caution, sometimes a crane operator may make a mistake, a mistake that in this case led to the partial destruction of a stadium and the deaths of two hapless workers. We should reserve judgment about FIFA and the construction company until more is known about the accident. That being said, like Gilda mentions, FIFA should be responsible for paying tribute (and compensation) to the families affected by this tragedy.
I agree with the above comments that FIFA needs to take more responsibility for the construction of the stadiums. However, how do we know what happened in Sao Pablo wasn’t just an accident? I haven’t heard much besides this incident. Maybe it was just an accident and some precautionary safety measures need to be taken. I do not think we need to escalate this story to parallel what is happening in Qatar though. If it is the case that it was just an accident and the stadium will still be used, FIFA needs to make sure to pay tribute to the workers who passed away this week after the collapse.
I completely agree with Avery on this issue. FIFA needs to take more responsibility for the construction of stadiums and the treatment of the workers building them. With an already-existing financial stranglehold on the soccer world, how could such an institution be so fundamentally inhumane in ignoring an obvious issue? When it was reported that hundreds of workers had died in Qatar in preparation for the 2022 World Cup, FIFA President Sepp Blatter claimed that the “football world couldn’t ‘turn a blind eye’ to the deaths.” However, his comments as well as his promise to meet the new emir of Qatar come across as political formalities rather than genuine concern for others’ well-beings. In yet another case of soccer-related tragedy, it’s disheartening to see the escalation of controversy around the world’s most popular sport.
I saw this the other day and was curious about any repercussions for Brazil and/or FIFA in regards to this incident. They clearly must be rushing all of the stadiums considering they are supposed to be finished and the games will begin in 7 months. What would happen if the workers were to protest? There isn’t much time to spare, and the more time that goes by, the more accidents could potentially happen. FIFA needs to learn from its previous mistakes and get a hold of the labor conditions in its host countries.