Brazil’s rush to complete work on World Cup stadiums has been especially stressful for wheelchair-bound fans, who fear they will struggle with still-unfinished ramps, bleachers and sidewalks.
But a rehearsal game on Sunday in Sao Paulo was a pleasant surprise, disabled fans said, especially in a country where infrastructure is often deficient even for those with no impediments. They credited the army of support staff that may hold the key to Brazil’s broader chances for a glitch-free tournament beginning on June 12.
Congresswoman Mara Gabrilli, a quadriplegic and an international activist on disability issues, attended Sunday’s “test match” between two local club teams after receiving complaints about accessibility in many of Brazil’s 12 host cities.
photo: REUTERS
It took Gabrilli two hours, three subway trains, nine elevators and a wheelchair-accessible van provided by the city government to get from central Sao Paulo to Arena Corinthians, some 20km to the east.
IMPRESSIVE
Once she arrived, though, she was impressed. Hundreds of police, stadium staff and volunteers were on hand to provide directions, push wheelchairs over cracks and otherwise help atone for incomplete construction.
“It’s very organized,” said Gabrilli, a member of Brazil’s main opposition party. “So many people here to help! I’m surprised.”
Brazil’s World Cup preparations have been plagued by construction delays and canceled plans for trains and other public transportation projects. Fans are likely to face severe traffic and other bottlenecks.
FIFA, soccer’s governing body, has said that at least 1 percent of the Cup’s 3 million tickets would be available to disabled fans. Its media office did not respond to a request for an updated number.
FIFA and local laws mandate that stadiums be wheelchair-accessible. But in Brazil, as in many developing countries, disabled fans will face accessibility challenges at hotels, restaurants and other facilities.
Disabled fans’ concerns were magnified last week after Rio de Janeiro’s municipal tourism secretary, Antonio Pedro Figueira de Mello, said in a radio interview that organizers “haven’t given all the necessary attention” to disabled fans.
“Those people don’t tend to come to World Cups that much (anyway),” he added. His office later apologized, saying he misspoke.
HARDER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN
At an April 30 game in Natal, a host city in Brazil’s northeast, radio reporter Edeilson Felix said that while accessibility at the stadium was “top-notch,” he struggled to get inside because the area remains a construction site.
Felix said a colleague had to maneuver his wheelchair through puddles and over curbs. “It was a lot harder than it should have been,” he said.
Brazil’s plan for dealing with this issue, and many others, seems to be: Throw people at it.
That’s a time-honored strategy in a country where logistics and planning often fall short but where labor is relatively cheap and people are famously friendly and helpful.
It seemed to work Sunday.
Reuters spoke to 11 fans in wheelchairs. They, and many others, expressed satisfaction, even though some areas of Arena Corinthians are still missing chairs or are blocked off by partitions.
As the game ended, 12 city vans waited to take Gabrilli and other wheelchair-bound fans back to the train stop. Similar vans will be running during the tournament.
Gabrilli said Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest and wealthiest city, has “by far” the best wheelchair infrastructure — so events in other cities might not run as smoothly.
“We’ll be watching closely for any problems,” she said on Sunday. “But today was a good sign.”
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located