Despite huge concerns about Brazil’s readiness to host this summer’s World Cup, FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, has expressed confidence that the country will stage the best World Cup.
“It will be the most successful of all time,” he told Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff on Thursday.
Rousseff said she spoke with Blatter on the phone for 10 minutes and accepted his invitation to attend FIFA’s 64th Congress in Sao Paulo on June 10.
The congress would hold two days before the World Cup kicks off in the city.
“Blatter told the president he is ‘certain that the World Cup will be the most successful of all time’,” Rousseff’s office wrote in a blog post.
And when a politician speaks with such confidence, it must be true.
Blatter told Rousseff that with just 63 days until the tournament kicks off, 2.5 million tickets have been sold, which represents 75 per cent of the total available.
Three months ago, Blatter told a Swiss newspaper no country had ever been so behind schedule in organising a World Cup in all the years he had been at FIFA.
In December Blatter appealed to “God, Allah, whoever” to help ensure all 12 stadia would be finished on time.
It’s hard to see what has changed since then, but with time running out and no Plan B in place, it is now in everyone’s interests to accentuate the positives, cross one’s finger, and pretend everthing will be alright on the night.
