On Tuesday evening a loud noise engulfed Parliament Square: a
demonstration of flag-waving Brazilians. I asked one of them what he was protesting. It was, he said, the waste of money on the Olympics. I told him he was in the right city but the wrong year.
Here we go again. Brazil has been bamboozled into blowing $13bn on next year's football World Cup, and then on a similar sum to be later extorted by the International Olympic Committee to host the 2016 Games. Brazil's leftwing leader, Dilma Rousseff, was bequeathed the games by her populist predecessor, Lula da Silva. She has
desperately tried to side with the protesters, but she is trapped by the oligarchs of Fifa and the IOC.
© Barcroft MediaA protester in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Brazil's citizens are being hit with higher bus fares and massive claims on health and welfare budgets. Up to half a million people may take to the streets this weekend to complain of "
first world stadiums, third world schools". What is impressive about the demonstrators is that they appear not to be against sport as such, but against the extravagance of their staging. They are talking the language of priorities.
The World Cup is an ongoing scandal run by Fifa's unsackable boss, Sepp Blatter, on the back of ticket and television sales and soccer hysteria. Having bled the Brazilian exchequer of billions for new stadiums, he has the
cheek to plead with demonstrators that "they should not use football to make their demands heard". Why not? Blatter uses football to make his demands heard.
The Olympics are likewise sold by the IOC to star-struck national leaders as offering glory for political gain. Their purpose-built stadiums, luxurious facilities, lunatic security and lavish hospitality are senseless, yet are backed by construction and security lobbies and a chorus of chauvinist public relations. If the cost is bankruptcy, as in Montreal and Athens, too bad.
The golden caravan can move on to trap some new victim.
Comment: See also: PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel