Brazil’s Lula hits out at World Cup critics

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hit out at critics of Brazil’s preparations for the 2014 World Cup on Tuesday after a report highlighted serious delays in preparations for the huge event.

Brazil’s budget watchdog found that most works, including stadiums, adjacent roads and urban developments, hotels and transport infrastructure were “impressively late,” the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The report by the TCU watchdog, obtained by Estado, echoes concerns voiced by soccer world governing body FIFA in recent months over slow progress in the construction of stadiums and other infrastructure.

“The World Cup in South Africa has finished and they have already started saying ‘where are the Brazilian airports, where are the Brazilian stadiums, where are the Brazilian train lines, where are the Brazilian subway lines’ as if we were a band of idiots who didn’t know how to do things or define our priorities,” Lula said in the capital Brasilia.

Lula was speaking at an event launching the bidding process for a bullet train line between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The line will not be ready in time for the World Cup, although Lula said it could be ready for the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

The award of the World Cup and Olympics was seen as a stamp of approval on Brazil’s economic revival under Lula, and they are expected to drive a wave of new infrastructure development in Latin America’s biggest economy.

But only three of the 12 stadiums that need to be ready met a May 3 deadline set by FIFA for construction work to begin. Planned expansions of the country’s airports — crucial to transport hundreds of thousands of visitors around the vast country — are also lagging.

An apparent lack of planning and mounting execution problems could lead the Brazilian government to intervene and take over unfinished works for the World Cup, Estado reported, citing TCU Councilor Valmir Campelo.

On Monday, FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke said Brazil faces similar execution challenges to South Africa and warned the South American country was way off the pace in its preparations.

Brazil last hosted the World Cup in 1950 and the tournament has not been held in South America since Argentina hosted it in 1978.