By Xinhua
Brasilia : If Brazil are granted the right to host the 2014 World Cup, football fans from all over the world may find floating hotels to stay, said Brazil’s local government officials.
A FIFA inspection team is now in Brazil since Thursday to meet Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) officials and visit some of the candidate cities.
Transport, security and lodging would be some of the common topics during their meeting, since there are some critics about the poor state of stadiums and the transport infrastructure in Brazil.
“We are going to show to FIFA officials that we will offer a public transport system of excellent quality to football fans. And this is in addition to our high standards in culture, hotel and cookery”, said Walter Feldman, director of Sports Department of the city of Sao Paulo.
As the biggest city in Brazil, Sao Paulo mayor has declared that the budget to update local public transport system will be executed even without the World Cup.
A subway line will take fans to and from the famous stadium of Morumbi, located in the southwest of the city. And if necessary, a train would take people to Santos, a city located about 90 km from Sao Paulo, where they could find floating hotels in the port of Santos.
This idea of floating hotels has echoes in the northeast of the country. The states of Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte and Pernambuco, traditional heuristic resorts for European tourists, already have a chain of floating hotels and still want to update their infrastructure to meet the demands of foreign fans.
“We have two hotels under construction. But we still can set up some floating hotels near our coasts”, said Ferrucio Feitosa, director of the Sports Department of the state of Ceara.
Also in his opinion, the construction of a subway before 2010 would be another card to win for his state a candidate city place.
In the state of Para, the sports department said the Amazon river could be used to receive tourists in floating hotels, and about $450 million would be invested in infrastructure development.
In total, 18 Brazilian cities are in the race to host a World Cup match and the FIFA inspection team will visit five candidate cities – Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia and Porto Alegre – during their nine-day trip.
Brazil is the only country bidding to host the event, which is due to be staged in South America under FIFA’s rotation system.
FIFA will name the host country Oct 30.