Some of the stadiums built for the World Cup 2014 in Brazil are fast turning out into a major financial disaster. Unable to bear the huge operational and maintenance costs of the World Cup stadiums, a few have already come into the market on sale. Natal’s Dunas arena is one of the stadiums available for purchase. The stadium hosted four games during the World Cup tournament. Since then, however, it has struggled to attract crowds due to the lack of high-profile matches with a lot of attendances. Despite Brazil exporting a lot of players the rest of the world, it does not necessarily have a league with high attendance figures.
Even the top matches involving the likes of Corinthians and São Paulo struggled to fill up the massive stadiums built during the World Cup. The stadiums were constructed at a cost of huge expenses with most of the funding coming from the taxes. Brazil are reported to have spent around $ 3.6 billion in constructing the stadiums. They total 12 in number but only a handful are running close to breakeven. Some of the stadiums – like in Brasilia – have not hosted five events since the World Cup came to a close. This led to widespread protests even during the tournament, but Brazilian public have not been able to prevent Fifa running away with record profits as a result of this tournament.
The recent financial report from the world football governing body revealed that they had made a $ 2.6 billion profit over a four-year period. The governing body spent only $ 2.2 billion compared to the turnover of just under $ 5 billion. A significant portion of this money came through ticket sales and television revenue. As a return, Fifa gave Brazil only around $ 500 million for hosting the tournament.