No takers for Rio’s iconic Maracana stadium
Rio de Janeiro, Feb 4 (IANS) Just months after the Olympics, a dispute over the management of the Maracana stadium has erupted between the state and the city’s football federation, a media report said on Saturday.
The building was damaged by looters on Junuary 10, and has since lain empty as clubs and authorities argued over who should manage it, the BBC reported.
The city’s football federation said windows were smashed and items were stolen after the stadium was broken into.
The Maracana stadium, built to host the 1950 football World Cup and used in the 2016 Olympics, is owned by Rio de Janeiro’s state government which has been hit hard by Brazil’s deep economic crisis.
The stadium underwent costly modernisations for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. The federation said “the worries over the present and the future of the stadium are only increasing”.
The stadium has been used by all of Rio’s big four football clubs, Botafogo, Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama.
