Global football leaders descend no Sao Paulo Tuesday amid tendons over sub-way workers new threat to spoil Brazil World Cup party by going on strike the day of the opening match. IMM opens its 64th Congress under the cloud of a cornm¬tion scandal sur-roundbm the award¬ing of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, which has drawn rebel. from some of the world football body’s biggest spon¬sors Sao Paulo is meanwhile facing headaches of its now after subway workers threatened to resume a dam-aging Mace on Thursday, the day the world’s eyes tom to the Brazilian mega-city for the start of a Wmirl Cup whose build-up has been plagued by delays, overspending and protests. The workers voted Monday to sus-pend their five-day-old strike, which had causedinassiveuafficjams and cut off subway service to Corinthians Are¬na, the stadium hosting the openiog ceremony and kick-off. Officials are hard-pressed to avoid more problems as a billion people worldwide tune in to the game on TV. UN Secretary General Ban Ifi-moon and to heads of state and government will be in the stadium, which workers are rushing to finish on time Work on the 12 bout stadiums has been overshadowed by accidents that have lolled eight workers, including time. Corinthians Arena_ That together with instruction de¬lays, ballooning budgets and the shelv¬ing of premised infrastructure projects has bided anger over the W.ld Cup. Brazil has been hit by a wave of maces and protests ahead of the tour¬nommt and elections in October in which President Dilma Rousseff is seeking a second term. Rising inflation and a sluggish econ-omy have dented Brazilians’ enthusi¬asm for the World Cup. Ina nation with a wide and highly visible gap between rich and poor, crit¬ics say the more than $n billion for doe tournament would have been better spent on education, health, housing and transport. Sao Paulo’s subway workers had been facing growing pressure to end the latest strike, which stranded many of the system’s 4.5 million daily riders. A court ruled Sunday that the strike was illegal and slapped their union with a Ssss,000-a-day fine. On Monday, police cracked down on picketing workers, detaining 03 of them, and fired.. gas to break up a protestin their support AuthoriOes also fired ets employe. for “just cause,° accusing them of van¬dalism, blocking commuters and incit¬ing people to jump turnshl.. Union president Altino Melo dos Prareres said workers would resume their walkout Thursday lithe fired ern-Phorees were not re- hired. The union is seeking a raire of iss percent, but the government is offering only 8.7 perrnnt. The workers are due to meet on the eve of the World Cup to decide their n move_ At the same time FIFA will be wrap-ping up its congress of world football federation, where president &pp Blot¬ter is expected to announce he will seek a filth four-year term in the sport’s most powerful job. That however willblely be overshad-owed by allegations a former Qatari football boss paid more than 85 minion in bribes to win the vote to host the 2022 tOUTanlent. The scandal has spiked calls for a re-vote and led five of FISMsbiggest sponsore-Hyundai, Co. Cola, Adidas, Sony and Visa-to demand a full irousfi-gation. The Belgian and Nigerian teams are meanwhile due to arrive Tuesday. After that jest three of the 30 teams will be m Song: South Korea, Ghana and Portugal, all expected Wednesday.
