Mayor: Rio Ready for World Cup Lessons

(ATR) Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes says he is committed to making the city a safer place, not just for the Olympics but for future generations.

Paes spoke to reporters on Friday as the city prepared to host the final of the FIFA World Cup.

"The problem of Rio concerning security is not just for the Games," he said. "Rio has a history of delivering great events without the problems of security. It is an everyday problem; we want to solve the problem of security for our people, not for tourists and not for events.

"We want people to be safe, we want to drop the crime rates because we want to live in a better city."

The mayor accepts that the international media would likely focus on any violent stories coming out of the city and that would not help the city’s perception. However he believes the World Cup had helped that issue.

"It’s much more of an impression I think the World Cup has helped us with. We still face crime rates, we still face security problems, but we’re still better comparing Rio now to what it was five years ago.

"The solution to security problems is not for the World Cup, it’s not for Olympics - this is for Rio, our city, our families; this is for everyday life."

Lessons taken from Rio’s involvement in the World Cup process will be dissected in the days ahead when Paes presides over meetings determining "what worked" and "what didn’t work" over the course of the tournament.

Paes admitted that "the Olympics is much bigger challenge than any other event."

"The World Cup compared to the Olympics is kind of easy; the Olympics is very complicated. I’ve been spending much more time on Olympics than the World Cup."

For now, the complications surround the construction of the Olympic Park and of key infrastructure projects such as the new metro line linking the different parts of the city. All projects were on time, Paes assured reporters and the Bus Rapid Transit system is already functioning, giving thousands of Rio locals the opportunity to get around on public transport.

IOC President Thomas Bach will be able to judge Rio’s transportation progress for himself when he travels to the World Cup final on Sunday to see his country Germany take on Argentina. Bach visited Brasilia on Friday to meet with Dilma Rousseff.

Despite some criticism from some within the IOC of Rio’s progress, Paes denied there were any problems in their relationship.

"When I look at the criticism that we face, such as a few months ago, I see that as normal," he said. "We promised to deliver a lot of stuff, so we need to deliver everything. When somebody criticises Rio, we try to work even harder.

"We did have a lack of information with the international federations at one point. This lack of information combined with some mistrust about the World Cup is the reason why we had so much noise two months ago. But we have the best relationship with the IOC. These guys are professionals."

Although Bach has traveled with Olympic Games Executive Director Gilbert Felli, there are currently no scheduled trips to the tour the Olympic Park.

The construction site in Barra de Tijuca is now a 24-hour operation, funded through a public-private partnership – with the private sector actually footing the majority of the bill.Organizers will hope that fact will mean that they won’t face any similar construction delays to the World Cup which mostly used public money.

Reported in Rio De Janeiro by Christian Radnedge

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