Retail Latin America: What São Paulo's Unfinished World Cup Stadium Looks Like 10 Days Before The First Game

2014/06/04

What São Paulo's Unfinished World Cup Stadium Looks Like 10 Days Before The First Game

TONY MANFRED

With a week and a half to go until the World Cup, the 65,000-seat Itaquerão stadium in São Paulo is still not finished.

The stadium held its final test event on Sunday — a game between Brazilian top-flight teams Botafogo and Corinthians. Due to multiple construction delays over the last 15 months, it wasn't a full dress rehearsal.

Only 37,000 of the 65,000+ seats were filled because a section of temporary stands behind one of the goals had yet to be approved for use by the fire department. This comes two weeks after the construction company in charge of the project announced that the glass roof designed to protect fans from the rain wouldn't be completed until after the tournament.

On June 12 the ~$400 million arena will host the opening game of the World Cup, between Brazil and Croatia, and it will do so without a conducting full test event.

The Los Angeles Times reports that parts of the stadium were visibly unfinished, with construction materials and exposed concrete around the concourse.

One construction worker told the LAT:

"The stadium is marvelous, but it's not even finished! And that's completely unacceptable. It should have been done months ago."

Three workers died working on the stadium, delaying the construction multiple times. The original FIFA deadline for stadium completion was Dec. 31, 2013.

Photos from Sunday's game show that there is still a significant amount of work to be done.

The empty stand, still yet to be approved for spectators: