Missiles Installed on Apartment Buildings to Protect FIFA’s World Cup, 200,000 Troops Deployed

Brazil might not be a great place for a World Cup - but it is at least a country with a long, rich and superb history of football. Compare that history to the one underpinning Qatar 2022 and you will see everything wrong with the game's leadership and the direction our amazing game is taking.

As for the militarisation - it's sad to see, but this is what international terrorism and global recession has lead us to. About half the global population will see at least some of Brazil 2014, so the whole event is as high-profile as it comes. I would imagine the security threat could barely be higher.

Anyhow - for all our American friends wondering what all the fuss is about, remember this - the World Cup is just that. Every affiliated nation had a chance of being in Brazil this summer. It's not like the World Series.

a reply to: mclarenmp4
Spot on. I think it is unfair that major cities are getting billion dollar revenue events and none of the money going into the coffers is benefitting the people.

a reply to: Biigs
The issue Biigs is that Brazil has a lot of things going on that differ from London. Brazil still is haunted by the ghosts of slavery, Portuguese rule, and a caste system that sprang out from it. The fact that the favelas were built to almost trap the darker skinned people up into the areas that people like Ganga Zumba, Dandara, and Zumbi fought and built shantytowns essentially in its openings speaks volumes on where the country is in its development. Like Jamaica, in some parts of Brazil if you are a certain skin hue you are not allowed in certain areas after dusk. Now on top of that mix in the drug trade that sprang up exclusively in the 1970s with the Comando Vermelho coming into play after and the wars between KNockout Ned and Lil Ze. The issues with blacks in Brazil are eerily familiar to those of the blacks in America and the fact that there are areas like Ciudade de Deus that sprang up to push black in isolation zones compounds the racial and social and economic inequalities within that town. Yes, London has their issues but not to the scale of the ones in former slave countries.