Brazil accepts FIFA ‘kick up backside’ apology
nike jordans retroBrazil accepted FIFA’s apologies over the World Cup 2014 ‘kick up the backside’ controversy on Thursday, paving the way for President Dilma Rousseff to meet world football chief Sepp Blatter.
“The federal government accepts FIFA’s apology and expects that this will not happen again,” said a sports ministry statement.
FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke had caused a major rift last week when he said the organisers of the 2014 showpiece needed a “kick up the backside” to salvage various projects that had fallen behind schedule.
Sports minister Aldo Rebelo said he had sent two letters on Thursday to FIFA — one to FIFA president Blatter and the other to Valcke.
In them, it was stated that Rousseff would meet Blatter, although a date has yet to be confirmed.
Neither letter indicated whether Valcke, who is due to return to Brazil next Monday, would be recognized as FIFA spokesman.
On Monday, Marco Aurelio Garcia, a top adviser of Rousseff, slammed Valcke as a shameless “loudmouth” and said he was no longer an acceptable interlocutor between FIFA and the government.
But on Tuesday, Blatter offered a personal apology to the Brazilian government for the affair, one day after Valcke had been similarly contrite.
FIFA have for months expressed concern in varying degrees over the extent to which preparations — renovation or construction of stadiums, as well as infrastructure projects — are on track for the first World Cup in Brazil since 1950.
Valcke said he profoundly regretted that an incorrect interpretation of his comments had triggered such an angry response from the host country.
“I would like to present my apologies to everyone who was offended by my comments,” said Valcke, a French national.
He explained that in French, the phrase “se donner un coup de pied aux fesses” (to give someone a kick up the backside) only meant “to pick up the pace”. The translation into Portuguese used a stronger expression, he added.
“I don’t understand why things are not moving. The stadiums are not on schedule anymore and why are a lot of things late?” Valcke had said last Friday.
Another issue of concern is the delay in securing approval by the Brazilian legislature of a bill sought by FIFA since 2007 that would notably lift a ban on beer sales in stadiums during the World Cup.
A vote has been postponed until next week.
Candido Vaccarezza, the government leader in the lower house, said the delay would allow lawmakers more time to study the text, which must be endorsed by both houses of Congress before being signed by Rousseff.
Sales of alcoholic beverages in sports arenas have been banned in Brazil since 2003, but the bill would create an exception, allowing beer to be sold in plastic cups at World Cup matches.
FIFA has an agreement with its sponsor, the US-based Anheuser-Busch brand Budweiser, and prohibiting beer sales would cut into the football organization’s revenues from the games.
The bill would also authorize 300,000 low-cost tickets for students and underprivileged recipients of the government’s welfare programs.
“There is no war with FIFA,” Rebelo said in an interview with Globo News television released Thursday before the announcement that Brasilia had accepted the FIFA apologies.
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