A Lecture FIFA Didn't Need to Make

The action in the stadiums of Brazil became compelling by midweek, but the protests in the streets kept on swelling. 

Neymar, the home nation’s hero, turned in another of his quixotic performances Wednesday in a 2-0 victory over Mexico in the steamy heat of Fortaleza in the Confederations Cup. He scored with a masterful volley but he disappeared for long spells. Toward the end, he dashed between two Mexican defenders, fooled them with his footwork and laid down the second goal to be scored by Jo.

Outside, the police were using pepper spray and force to keep protesters at bay. 

Later that evening, Italy came from two goals down to wring out a 4-3 victory over Japan in the northeastern city of Recife. Once more the heat, humidity and tropical rain took players to the limits of their physical and mental stamina. Italy’s willpower prevailed. But Japan — with memorable skills from Keisuke Honda, Shinji Kagawa, Shinji Okazaki and Yuto Nagatomo — will be back a year from now, and nobody should regard them as pushovers at the World Cup. 

That is what all this is about. This Confederations Cup is a small-scale rehearsal; the 2014 World Cup is key.

It is no coincidence that Brazil, just like Turkey, which starts the FIFA Under 20 World Cup this weekend, was struggling to subdue huge public protests. They are developing nations, spending billions to use sports as a showcase for their changing political and economic status.

But there is a disturbing ignorance, at both FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, about what people are saying on the streets. 

The protests are against governments, but the game is up for the stakeholders of the World Cup and the Olympics. The people are protesting that these two giants of global sports keep on making their events bigger, keep on making the host countries pay and keep on taking their circuses to places willing to pay for them.

Neither FIFA nor the I.O.C. finances the multibillion dollar stadiums, nor pays for the infrastructure, the policing or the military protection needed to secure their events, which stretch on for weeks. But it is FIFA and the I.O.C. who bank the billions from the television revenues. 

The games have gotten too big, the price too high. Yet as this week unfolded, FIFA’s leaders, president Sepp Blatter and general secretary Jérôme Valcke, displayed bare-faced audacity.

“I can understand that people are unhappy,” Blatter said in Rio de Janeiro. “But football is here to unite people. Football is here to build bridges, to generate excitement, to bring hope.”

No country hopes for more from soccer than Brazil. It has won more World Cups, and given the game more style, than any other nation. It has expressed its love of the game — its obsession — during both military dictatorship and democracy. 

But these protests — some not violent until the marchers are fired upon — are specific in what they want. “Teachers are worth more than Neymar” read one placard. “We want schools and hospitals, not stadiums” read another. 

The protesters booed Blatter and their own president, Dilma Rousseff, inside the costliest stadium, in the capital of Brasilia, at the opening ceremony.

Yes, soccer unites. Yes, it is a wonderful thing that South Africa could stage the World Cup, and that Brazil, after 64 years, will get to be host to a second World Cup next year. 

And it is marvelous that Brazil, which exports more soccer talent than any other nation yet seldom gets to see these players in person in their prime, has this opportunity to see them on their own soil.

The home team players — Hulk and David Luiz and Fred and Neymar — have started to use their social media accounts to express support for the protestors “so long as they are peaceful.”

But their job is to do what they are doing, to win matches and to try to equal the standards that Spain has set as the world’s best at the moment. Spain has reiterated that this week, and not just with its passing against Uruguay in the Confederations Cup — it also won the European Under-21 tournament in Israel. 

Isco and Thiago Alcântara (the latter born of Brazilian parents) showed that they are good and ready to step into the shoes of Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández the moment those great players lose their touch.

So, yes, bring it on. Take it to Brazil and see if the land of nearly 200 million soccer lovers can rise to the challenge. 

But, Mr. Blatter, do not dare to tell Brazilians, as he did this week, that the protests should stop because FIFA is giving the country “improved airports hotels, highways, telecommunications, sustainability programs.” Blatter knows — and the people know — that his former boss at FIFA, João Havelange, was responsible for the corruption that should have shamed the world governing soccer body. Havelange is Brazilian, and Havelange and his cronies were finally exposed last year as helping themselves to profits from a FIFA marketing partner that went bankrupt.

Blatter, the head of a discredited organization, chose to lecture Brazilians this week. 

“Football,” he said, “will always be a simple and beautiful game.” FIFA did not impose the World Cup on Brazil, he continued, and the protestors should stop disrupting “the spirit, the essence and the integrity” that FIFA brings them.

The protests grew louder.