Time is short today, so the weekly stadium spotlight series takes a brief look at a stadium that has a considerable transformation planned for it.

In May, the twelve host cities for the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil were announced. One of the winning bids was Fortaleza, the state capital of Ceará in Northeastern Brazil.

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1) The 2010 seeding formula. Using the previous formula (from 2006), it appears that Portugal's resurgence may see them get seeded after all at the expense of France. They were always in good shape as long as they managed to qualify, and that looks very likely now. The same eight teams have been in the running ever since July 2006, so one good team is going to get let out no matter what. Click to continue reading...

CBF announced today that Brazil will play a friendly match against England on November 14th. Where? Doha, Qatar. Why? The organization sold the right of all friendlies of the national team. And the people who bought it can organize the matches wherever they please.

In the meantime, While CBF pockets money and Brazilian fans do not get to see their national squad, Brazilian clubs struggle financially.

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The newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported that the Brazilian cities that will host the 2014 World Cup missed their first deadline. The nine cities that will use tax payers' money to build stadiums failed to publish the invitation to the bidding process by the final date set by the local organizing committee.

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Months ago, I mentioned the danger of the 2014 World Cup turn into drain for public money. The final destination: the pockets of corrupt Brazilian politicians. It seems the party just got started.

Blog do Jose Cruz, which investigates the politics of sports, showed yesterday that the city of Cuiaba, capital of Mato Grosso and one of the 12 hosts, already broke the rules to avoid the waste of tax payers' money.

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Maurício Murad, sociologist and professor from UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), shows that in the past 10 years, 42 football fans were killed in Brazil in fights around or inside stadiums. The source of his ranking are media and police reports made between 1999 and 2008. In the past 5 years, death rates increased to 5.

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The 2014 World Cup is 5 years ahead of us. Long time? Not for the politics going on in the background. Before I even go ahead, bare in mind a few things:

Brazil hosted the 2007 Pan-american games in Rio. The proposed budget for the hosting the games: R$ 400 million ( at a rate of US$ 1 = R$ 2.

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Since Friday, the list was known, but FIFA made it official this Sunday. The cities are:

Belo Horizonte (MG),
Brasília (DF),
Cuiabá (MT),
Curitiba (PR),
Fortaleza (CE),
Manaus (AM),
Natal (RN),
Porto Alegre (RS),
Recife (PE),
Rio de Janeiro (RJ),
Salvador (BA),
São Paulo (SP).

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Pele, the soccer legend himself, was robbed by an armed gang earlier this month. Pele was the passenger in a car that was stuck in traffic when a gang of 10 armed men surrounded his vehicle. The men took his gold necklace, a mobile phone and a watch.
His driver was also robbed, however when the gang recognized Pele, they returned items to the driver but not to the super star. Click to continue reading...

Maybe Sepp Blatter couldn't shut up with his ridiculous blathering this weekend because he hoped to occlude some bad news from both South Africa and Brazil. There have long been concerns about the safety and infrastructure in both places ahead of the World Cups in 2010 and 2014 respectively, and those were seemingly amplified this [. Click to continue reading...

Pele believes that the way David Beckham was introduced to the US audience was 'very, very bad' because he was introduced as 'a scorer of goals.'
But Beckham is not the only problem he sees for MLS as he also believes that the current salary cap is hurting the game.

Pele believes MLS players' salaries need to be raised to the level of American football or baseball players.

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It's been pretty much a well-known fact that Brazil was going to get to host the 2014 World Cup but the official announcement still gives me jitters.
Brazil is now officially the host nation for the 2014 World Cup.
In soccer terms, there are few nations as deserving as Brazil to host a World Cup. The last time Brazil hosted a World Cup, the nation had exactly zero World Cup titles. Click to continue reading...

It's official.
Football's world governing body FIFA announced today that Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup, the second time the five-time winner of the tournament will host the event.
Brazil were the only country bidding to host the finals, but their delegation went through the formality of making a 30-minute presentation to the world governing body's executive committee in Zurich earlier today, before being officially awarded the finals. Click to continue reading...

The country that inspired the colors used on the World Cup trophy will indeed host the finals in 2014. Fifa made official what people have known for years when they voted today to award the South American giants the honor of having the games.
Brazil has a little less than seven years to renovate/build stadiums and improve transportation issues, hopefully not at the cost of social programs for their people. Click to continue reading...

Mark this under 'Sad News' in my eyes.
FIFA took the easy route to riches and ended their World Cup rotation policy, which rotated the hosting of World Cups through its six continental confederations.
The rotation policy allowed countries like South Africa (2010) and Brazil (2014) the opportunity to host the competition. Click to continue reading...

Fifa made it official today, the rotational system will die after the 2014 Brazil finals, meaning everyone except for little Oceania and Concacaf got a piece of the World Cup pie.
This comes as no surprise as Fifa boss Sepp Blatter has been hinting at this for some time now but still, one has to wonder why Concacaf President and Blatter's BFF Jack Warner was not able to bring his confederation the finals as he promised. Click to continue reading...

Brazil sounds like a dream location for football fans to host the World Cup after next. Samba nights. Kids playing barefoot on the beaches. A true festival of the beautiful game. And it surely will be Brazil: earlier this week, FIFA's inspection group's report affirmed that "It would be appropriate to choose Brazil as the [...] Click to continue reading...

Back in 1930, Uruguay hosted the first ever World Cup and they want to do it again 100 years later. However, they realize that the current version of the finals is a bit too big for them to do it alone, so they have joined with neighbors Argentina for the right to host the 2030 World Cup.

AFA president Julio Grondona expressed his desire to help Uruguay host the event through a formally written letter that was sent to the AUF headquarters in Montevideo earlier on in the week.

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The FIFA 2014 World Cup inspection tour of Brazil is underway. Representatives will visit five candidate cities during their nine-day trip while 13 other cities will make their presentations in Rio de Janeiro.
Although Brazil is the only country up for consideration to host the finals, they are not guaranteed to win them. FIFA will want to know how the country plans to update their stadiums and transportation options before they award them the 2014 cup. Click to continue reading...

As the only nation in the running to get the 2014 World Cup, chances are very good that Brazil will bring it home on Tuesday when they showcase their bid (the final FIFA announcement is not till Oct 30). However, as exciting as this is, they still need to address a number of issues such as the poor state of the stadiums and even poorer transportation facilities. Click to continue reading...

FIFA, world football's governing body, is expected to announce the site of the 2014 World Cup October 29th.
Brazil is widely expected to be named the hosts.
Considering they're the only country in the running, I'd say their shot at winning selection is pretty good ...
FIFA is trying to introduce a rotation policy to hosting the World Cup between the 6 regional confederations. Click to continue reading...