Three Brazil World Cup stadiums to miss FIFA deadline

Three World Cup stadiums in Brazil will not be completed in time for FIFA’s end of December deadline.

Football’s governing body says the stadiums in Sao Paulo, Curitiba and Cuiaba will not be ready because of construction delays.

The stadiums in Curitiba and Cuiaba are expected to be ready in February, four months before the World Cup.

But, as for Sao Paulo, where a crane collapse last week killed two workers and damaged part of the stadium, FIFA was unwilling to even suggest a completion date.

FIFA has said it would not tolerate the same delays that plagued the Confederations Cup this year, when only two venues were completed by the original deadline.

Twelve months on little has changed.

Six months ago FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke, while insisting that all stadiums would be ready by the end of the year, said there were no alternative plans to move the 2014 World Cup away from Brazil.

“The World Cup will be held in Brazil. The first game will happen in Sao Paulo, the final will be in Rio. There is no plan B.”

Let’s hope there will be no need for one.