Sao Paulo: The stadium hosting the opening match of the World Cup on June 12 will not be finished in time for its final test event, its owners said on Friday.
Sao Paulo’s Corinthians Arena had to schedule a last-minute test for Sunday, 11 days from the World Cup kick-off, after its first official match revealed a host of problems despite only filling the stadium to half capacity.
But Corinthians football club, the stadium’s owners, said safety officials had only authorized them to sell 40,000 tickets for the second test event, still short of the 65,000 fans expected for the World Cup opener between Brazil and Croatia.
That will likely create new friction with Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke, the football governing body’s task-master for host country preparations, who wrote in a dismayed tweet after visiting the stadium on May 21 that it is “vital for us that all facilities will be tested under full match conditions.”
Work on Brazil’s 12 host stadiums has been marred by chronic delays, cost overruns and construction accidents that have killed eight workers — three of them here.
