For many soccer fans, the World Cup might as well be a month-long holiday. But for Rio de Janeiro's 6 million citizens, three days of the global soccer tournament Brazil will host this summer are now official public holidays.
Rio's municipal government this week declared public holidays during the tournament on June 18, June 25 and July 4. June 18 marks defending champion Spain's group match against Chile, June 25 is 1998 champ France's match against Ecuador and July 4 is the date of a to-be-determined quarterfinal matchup.
All three matches will take place at Rio's legendary Maracana Stadium.
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The decision is aimed at addressing Rio’s problems with road congestion, with traffic expected to become even more gridlocked on match days. Rio's traffic problems have only worsened since the city began construction on a series of roads for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The government believes the three new holidays will help reduce traffic on match days.
But the holiday declaration also underscores tensions in Brazil about hosting one of the world's biggest and most expensive sporting events. National and public holidays will already cost Rio an estimated 5.5 billion reais ($2.3 billion) — which is 4% of the city’s industrial GDP — this year, according to a report from Firjan, a regional industry industry group. Three more holidays will only add to that production hit.
“This will certainly have a big impact on production,” Jonathas Goulart, an economist at Firjan, told Bloomberg News. “In Brazil there is an excessive number of holidays.”
Brazil is spending an estimated $11 billion to prepare for the World Cup, constructing or or refurbishing 12 stadiums around the country.
The soaring cost of hosting amid struggling social programs has fueled protests in Brazil, some of them violent. Since the Confederations Cup in June, protestors have taken to the streets of various Brazilian cities to protest the amount of money spent on this one-time tournament rather than services such as public transit and education.
Since the stadiums are behind schedule, construction has been accelerated to meet deadlines imposed by FIFA, world soccer's governing body. This acceleration is blamed by some for contributing to the death of six workers since November, as safety procedures took a back seat to haste.
Nelber Bonifcacio, an unemployed teacher among the group of protesters during the Confederation’s Cup in June, summarized the tension over Brazil's World Cup party to the The Guardian last year.
"I'm here to fight corruption and the expense of the World Cup," Bonifcacio said. "I like football, but Brazil has spent all that money on the event when we don't have good public education, healthcare or infrastructure."