FUCK FIFA!

The penultimate governor of Aden, Sir Richard Turnbull, famously declared that "when
the British Empire finally sank beneath the waves of history, it would leave behind it only two
monuments: one was the game of Association Football, the other was the expression ‘Fuck
Off’." Turnbull's prophecy appeared to have been ironically fulfilled when a battered Brazilian
passenger train was recently seen clattering through Rio's suburbs with the phrase "FUCK
FIFA" emblazoned on its side.

Brazil was never part of Britain's formal empire. But for much of the 19th century,
thanks to a combination of one-sided trade treaties and financial-commercial bullying, it was
reduced to the status of a de facto British colony. And nowhere did the "British disease" - as
the Germans dubbed the game of football - infect the collective imagination as in Brazil.
Football helped the country construct an inclusive post-slavery identity, providing an arena
where black Brazilians could be regarded not only as equals but idols, and enabling a formerly
individualistic, work-averse culture to embrace an ethic of collective endeavour. The game also
enabled an emerging nation to assert itself on the global stage as a sporting super-power. The
hosting of the 2014 FIFA World Cup was expected to consecrate the country's status as an
economic giant, having leapfrogged the UK in the global GDP table (not to mention leaving
England far behind in the FIFA rankings). But stuttering growth has seen the country slip below
an underachieving UK in the economic leagues and FIFA's projects are looking increasingly
tainted - if not fucked.

The third element in the triumvirate of British imperial monuments which Turnbull
failed to mention was the railways. The knackered tracks along which the graffiti-scrawled
carriages rattled form part of the Central Railway Line - formerly the Dom Pedro II - built by the
British in the 1850s. The Central/Dom Pedro was one of a dozen or so Brazilian railways
constructed, financed and/or run by the British in the 19th century which helped turn Brazil
into the world's biggest coffee exporter and spurred the transformation of São Paulo from
rural backwater into financial-industrial powerhouse. The British-built railways also brought
British football enthusiasts to Brazil, notably the Anglo-Scots descended San Paulo Railway
clerk Charles Miller, the so-called founder of the "violent British sport" in Brazil. (The symbiosis
of railways and football is evident in the number of clubs formed by railway employees, from
Manchester United - founded by employees of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway - to
Corinthians and Ponte Preta of São Paulo. There is even a Brazilian football club simply called
Ferroviaria - or 'Railway'. The railways allowed for the formation of national leagues in Britain
and the playing of the first interstate fixtures in Brazil, with teams from São Paulo and Rio
travelling on the Central Railway Line to their respective away games).

The plight of the Central Railway, with its disintegrating tracks, near-weekly
derailments and violent passenger mutinies, epitomises the dismal state of rail infrastructure
in Brazil. The once glorious lines on which passengers could travel in armchair comfort in soot-
protective smocks from Rio to the Bolivian border, have largely been mothballed or sold off
and earmarked for cargo traffic. With the waning of British influence in the post-war years and
her substitution by the US as the dominant economic force in Latin America, Brazil - under
modernizing President Juscelino Kubitschek - embraced the US road-centric transport model -
itself inspired by the Nazi autobahn system in which Hitler invested heavily. International auto-
plants sprang up all over the southern São Paulo region, once criss-crossed by British-built
railways, and the rail network was gradually reduced, by policy, privatization and indifference,
to a rump. The current state of Brazil's rail passenger transport programme is illustrated by the
story of the planned Rio-São Paulo bullet-train. Announced with great fanfare in 2009 by then
Chief of Staff - now President - Dilma Rousseff, the project was due to be inaugurated in June
2014 - in time for the World Cup! An estimated R$1 billion has since been consumed in
preliminary studies and consultancy fees and not a single metre of track has been laid. (An
ironic celebration to mark the (non-)opening of the line was recently organized on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/239212782917216/)

It is, thus, no coincidence that the Central Line has become a focus for the animus of
World Cup-averse Brazilians. The widespread protests of June 2013 were kicked off by the
Passe Livre campaign for free/improved urban transport and sustained by intense anger at
underinvestment in infrastructure and public services, and the squandering of taxpayer money
on inherently obsolete sporting stadia. Hijacked by militant self-styled 'anarchists', the protest
movement reached a nadir when Brazilian cameramen Santiago Andrade was fatally wounded
by a homemade firework in front of the Central Railway terminus in February of this year. The
movement has since lost much of its popular support and momentum but the Central Railway
station remains the departure point of choice for intermittent Rio-based demonstrations.

Rio de Janeiro's rugged topography makes it highly unsuited to the pro-car culture
which has seen the city's fleet of vehicles double in the last ten years with predictable
consequences for its increasingly grid-locked roads. The prospect of being held up in traffic
between their São Conrado hotel and Urca training ground had been of the England football
squad's main concerns prior to their arrival in Brazil. But yesterday (09.06.14), it was England
who were responsible for the snarl-up. In an ill-omen for those fearing England might revert to
a more conservative style of play and sideline their flair players at this tournament, they
literally parked the team bus across two lanes of traffic in front of the hotel when someone
belated realized that midfielder, Ross Barkley, had been left behind. Barkley eventually arrived
with the lateness of a Honduran tackle and the insouciance of Glen Johnson leaving a B&Q
branch with a shoplifted toilet-seat. (The Mexican team fared even less successfully when their
official FIFA bus suffered a flat battery - arguably the best FIFA metaphor of the competition so
far - on their way to their Santos training ground, forcing players to complete the journey by
taxi. The Dutch meanwhile have been reinforcing laid-back hash-pancake-eating national
stereotypes, playing keepy-uppy and frescobol on Ipanema Beach, admiring the local
landscape from kiosks and 'dribbling' - as Brazilians would say - local traffic problems by
eschewing official transport in favour of minibuses).

The England team eventually reached their training ground, located picturesquely in
the lea of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, yesterday morning. The mountain was originally scaled by
a joint team of Austrian and English officers and sailors, in 1818, according to the son of former
British consul, Henry Chamberlain:

"The Eastern side was chosen as the easiest ascent, but it cost them two hours of dangerous
and difficult exertion to reach the summit. Having deposited under some Stones a Bottle
containing a Paper with the names of the Parties, and set up a Staff bearing a large White Flag
with a Red Cross, they descended, but, upon reaching the foot of the hill, were, to their great
astonishment, arrested, and carried prisoners to the Guard-House."

It wouldn't be the last time that Englishmen flaunting a St George's flag would be
detained abroad. Chamberlain added that "some thought it the work of the devil" and couriers
were sent to the Prince Regent at his country estate to report the "wonderful news".
Yesterday afternoon, several members of the England team took part in a capoeira class at the
Rocinha favela. Their teacher, Ismael Vasconcelos, described their efforts as "clumsy" - "They
don't have our flexibility" - and ruled them out as contenders for the trophy, predicting a
Brazil-Spain final. It seems the England team has its work cut out if the St George's flag is to
recover its capacity to inspire fear and wonder in Brazil.

Mexican official FIFA bus suffered a flat battery (09.06.14) close to team hotel forcing players
to take taxis to the training ground.

The Dutch played keepy uppies and frescobol on the beach, Van Persie sat at a kiosk admiring
the local beauty, they eschewed the official transport and took a minibus to their training
ground in Gávea. Dutch informality could scarcely have been more stereotypical of they had
eaten a hash pancake/pandering to stereotypes and allowed their beach to be invaded by
Germans or if Robben had fallen over every time he failed to make contact with the football.
Staying at Hotel Ceasar Park in Ipanema.

Famed/vaunted British punctuality/timekeeping - so-called hora Inglesa - suffered a

malfunction when the team bus stopped in the São Conrado coastal road (Ill omen's for those
fearing England might adopt/revert to a more conservative style of play at this World Cup;
they literally parked the bus) trapping two lanes of traffic for 10 minutes while Ross Barkley,
who had been left behind caught up with the bus, with the lateness of a Honduran challenge.
Before heading to Urca for training session beneath the Sugar Loaf mountain which was said to
have been scaled first by Britons, Hillary Carstairs or English sailor who planted a St. George's
flag on the summit (will the red and white flag still be flying, instill fear a few weeks from
now?). Fears about traffic. They trained for the first time in the lea of the Sugar Loaf Mountain.
The granite fang of gneiss protruding from what Claude Levi-Strauss disparaged as a toothless
mouth. Wind-bitten.

Welcomed by school children singing We Are The Champions. They unfurled a banner reading:
'Obrigado, Brasil, pela recepção calorosa.'

Sturridge and Co. took part in a coppoeira class in Roçinha. Ismael Vasconcelos, teacher of the
group: 'Eles (Sturridge e Welbeck) são desengonçados, não tem a nossa ginga, mas mandaram
bem.'
´Realmente não faltou calor humano no dia da seleção Inglesa. Debunking another English
stereotype - that of English coldness.

English language another legacy - language of FIFA and anti-racism campaign, sponsor's ads.

Italy beating Flu (historic significance) Exeter.

'Train Surfers' on the British-built Central Railway Line. Initially, train surfers adopted the
practice of riding on carriage roofs to escape the suffocating overcrowding within. Later 'train
surfing' became a sport where kudos was gained by successfully negotiating an obstacle course
of columns, bridges and high-voltage power lines at considerable speeds. The extreme sport
was largely (though not wholly) suppressed by the authorities in the 1990s, weary of retrieving
charred corpses from transmission lines and mangled bodies from tracks. Train surfers
(adrenalin junkies associated with DPII, now just crack junkies).

Why risk life and limb surfing a train when you could be 'spotting' it from the safety of the
concourse?

DPII built with aid of 1.5 million loan raised in London

First 48km cost 625,991 sterling and Co. went bankrupt.

Price had to contend with flight of immigrant workers due to insalubrious nature of work and
resorted to replacing them with thousands of Chinese coolies – one estimate that 5,000 of
them succumbed to fever and are buried in Belem cemetery. Ravaged by tropical fevers.

Line built to tap coffee district

Transportation of café via DPII reached 172 thousand tons annually in 1885

Coffee financed the Rio's neoclassical makeover at turn of C20

The Supervia/Central do Brasil currently in debt to Light to tune of $25 million.

“Quando o Bangu vencia, muito bem, náo havia nada, o trem podia voltar sem vidraças
partidas. Quando o Bangu perdia, porém, a coisa mudava de figura. Os jogadores da cidade
trancavam-se no barracáo, o vestiario da época, náo queriam sair, só com polícia, os
torcedores corriam para esconder-se no trem, deitando-se nos bancos compridos de madeira,
enquanto as pedras fuzilavam, partindo vidros, quebrando cabeças ... Todos levando a coisa
mais para rivalidade entre o clube do subúrbio e clube da cidade.”

In 1958, a collision at the Mangueira Station killed 130 people (100 years after inauguration);
in 2004 two Supervia trains collided at Japeri station injuring 52; 1996 15 people died when a
cargo train collided with a passenger train on the Japeri stretch.

On Jan 18th 2010 a train left Japeri for Central and travelled from Ricardo de Albuquerque to
Oswaldo Cruz (4 stations) at over 100km without a driver. After the engine driver got down to
check a problem the train started moving again, with doors open; police are seeking
passenger believed to have entered cabin and set ‘ghost train’ in motion.

1884: DPII carries 3,125,127 passengers on its main line.

Transformations

Streets surrrounding Central riddled with crack addicts and muggers: Link

Down the Paraiba Valley: ‘The whole of this valley belongs to a comparatively few wealthy and
important Brazilians, Viscondes and Baroes, of such influence that the railway has had to cross
the river five times between Pirahy and Porto Novada Cunha by long and expensive bridges to
serve the interests of a Barao on this side, or a Visconde on the other … Beyond here the line is
only in construction both down the Parahyba and north up the Parahybuna.’

Arguable that the railways were constructed primarily for the benefit of their investors and the
landowners and touched relatively few Bs.

Edward Price awarded the contract to build a railway linking SP to Rio (later the DPII), Feb.
1855. Price effectively given carte blanche to do what he wished and guarantees against losses,
the result being, “A defective line, that had to be almost entirely rebuilt; at a level subject to
flooding; buildings of the poorest brick which disintegrated in the humidity…”

Choice of gauges – 1,676 for Mauá – and 1.60 m for rest of early lines a mystery – perhaps
explained by availability of material in England, after Parliament decreed that all English lines
should use the 1.435 m gauge as standard. 1.60 m standard in Ireland and still known as “Irish
gauge”, used in Ireland, Brazil and Australia. Narrow gauge lines became more common after
1871. Debate led to creation of “broad gauge” and “narrow gauge” factors and complicated
the process of integration of lines, as happened in other countries. More recent rail
development (Ferronorte, Norte-Sul, Transnordestina, have reverted to broad gauge)

Brazil failed to develop rail as national rather than provincial resource ending up with
hotchpotch of gauges and administrations. Responsibility for development lay with provinces
rather than govs, confined largely to coastal regions and none, apart from a connection with
Uruguay, stretching into the ten countries with which Brazil shares a border. Rail, furthermore,
developed to serve needs of specific industries, coffee in south, sugar in north, rather than to
provide means to travel round the country.

Elevated section of Central at Manguinhos thought to have cost between R$274 and R$1
billion. Between 1850 and 1870, they managed to construct DPII, SPR, gas-lighting system and
comprehensive sewage system on time and, in some cases (SPR), under budget.

Br rail system now considered a second class transport system, like provincial English bus
service. Limited nature of Br. Rail network compared to other BRICS.

11% of Brazil’s 1.5 km of roads unpaved; queues up to 37km long at certain ports, leading to
losses of up to 30% of perishable goods.

Transnordestina

April 2009, employees of Supervia seen whipping passengers with cords of whistles as they
scrambled to squeeze into overcrowded trains at Madureira Station, during strike; train-surfers
spotted on trains leaving same station.

In October, 2009, following break-down of engine on Japeri-Central line outside Nilopolis,

passengers took to the tracks to protest and demand their money back; having been left
locked in the carriages for 20 minutes, passengers smashed windows and broke down doors
before proceeding to the station, destroying turnstiles, smashing up the ticket office and
dragging the safe onto the tracks; the tumult was eventually contained by police using stun
grenades (bombas de efeito moral) and pepper gas. Simultaneously annoyed group of delayed
passengers set fire to two carriages at the Mesquita station. Tumults also registered at Nova
Iguaçu and Deodoro stations. In nod to great train robber, Ronnie Biggs, they sacked the ticket
office and looted the safe.

Study conducted by Agencia Nacional de Transportes Terrestes (ANTT) shows that 62% of the
railways handed over to private sector in the 1990s are inactive or abandoned; of the 28,831
km of tracks in Brazil, only 10,930 are used. 77% of narrow gauge tracks inoperative; all broad
gauge tracks in use. for distances over 600km, rail transport 30% cheaper (according to
Bernardo Figueiredo, director-general of ANTT);

O Transporte ferroviário no Brasil ou a Rede ferroviária brasileira possui 29,817

Brazil presently has only about 1,000km of passenger track, an amount set to quadruple by
2020.

Setor ferroviário, que chegou a transportar 100 milhões de pessoas por ano, levou 1,5
milhão em 2005 em viagens de longa distância

In the past, it was possible to travel by train from Central to Bolivia sitting in armchair
accommodation.

October 2009 survey classified 69% of Brazilian highways as being in bad, terrible (24%) or in
only regular condition.
Construction of a highway in Brazil takes on average 5 ½ years – 3 ½ years of which are
consumed with bureaucracy, according to consultants LCA.

Bullet train project proceeding at snail's pace.

In December 2009, hand grenade discovered on stretch of track linking Comendador Soares
and Austin; in October, mafia dos vans hurled rocks into the pantografo which links a train to
the electrical grid of a train en route to Central Station.

Hitler more interested in roads and cars than rail, having developed concept of motorways in
which he invested heavily.

Areas surrounding stations frequently became run-down, filled with cheap hotels and
prostitutes, hustlers, thieves – in spite of grandeur of buildings themselves (King’s Cross
virtually synonymous with prostitution, Estaçào de Luz).

Of major developed countries, only in US has intercity passenger rail travel become entirely
marginal.

Os mais de cem milhões de passageiros transportados pelos trens da SuperVia anualmente não
utilizam a malha ferroviária somente para ir e voltar do trabalho. Tem crescido o número de
apreensões e prisões nos trens, principalmente na Central do Brasil, realizadas pelo Núcleo de
Policiamento Ferroviário (Nupfer) do Batalhão de Policiamento de Choque. São pessoas que
usam o meio de transporte para carregar drogas. Comparando agosto de 2009 com o mesmo
mês este ano, o crescimento das ocorrências foi de 190% na delegacia da Central do Brasil .

Embora o padrão internacional considere 25 anos o tempo de vida útil de um trem, a SuperVia
tem 49 deles, ou seja, 25% de sua frota, com 50 a 60 anos de uso. Construídas em aço
carbono, essas composições oxidam com muito mais facilidade do que as das gerações
posteriores, feitas de aço inox, e não contam com ar-condicionado. A concessionária promete
retirar de circulação todos trens fabricados entre 1954 e 1964 ainda este ano.

Favela/cemetery dos Inglezes