Saturday, July 11, 2009

Kicking off Brazilian dream

The 12 host cities for the highly anticipated 2014 World Cup have been officially unveiled from the long list of 17 in Brazil - causing international property investors to start pinpointing these cities as the next investment hotpots...

Football's ruling body, FIFA, has selected 12 Brazilian cities to host matches at the 2014 World Cup finals.

The cities were announced at FIFA's annual congress in the Bahamas by FIFA President Sepp Blatter and it was agreed to up the number of host cities from 10 to 12 due to the sheer size of Brazil.

Blatter said, "It was a very difficult decision to choose just 12 venues from the initial list of 17. We want to make this World Cup a sporting success and this is the most important thing."

Natal, Fortaleza, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Cuaiba, Curitiba, Manaus, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Sao Paulo were all selected.

Manaus won the battle between Amazon basin cities Rio Branco and Belem, while Cuiabá was chosen ahead of Campo Grande from the Pantanal zone - an area of outstanding natural beauty and resource.

Belem, Campo Grande, Goiania, Rio Branco and Florianopolis were the cities that missed out.

The football tournament is the world's biggest single code sporting event in terms of audience - including billions of television viewers. The power of publicity generated from the tournament has led to property investors looking to Brazil for money spinning opportunities.

All the stadiums are required to hold at least 40,000 spectators, with the final to be staged in the famous Maracana Stadium which was refurbished in 2006 and reopened in January 2007 with an all-seated capacity of 88,992.

James Gonzalez, Market Analyst at Obelisk Investment Property, had the final word, saying that the Brazilian property sector has ‘everything going for it' at the moment.

Picture by xenia antunes

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