Brazil will be 'transformed' by 2014

Although the vast country faces a race against the clock to have everything ready in time, Brazil will be a country transformed come the 2014 World Cup, which it will host, organisers insisted Friday. A total of 12 venues, some new, some - like Rio's Maracana - requiring major facelifts, will host the games across a country of some 190 million people. But concerns have been voiced since the event was awarded to the South Americans four years ago that the infrastructural improvements may not be completed on time. Organising committee president Ricardo Teixeira insisted that the hosts would produce an event to be proud of as he addressed the world's media a day ahead of Saturday's preliminary draw at the Rio marina complex. "This is a unique opportunity for us to see a country which is starting to show its deep-seated transformation towards being the Brazil of the future," said Teixeira, the head of the Brazilian football Confederation (CBF). He insisted that "the 12 venues already have in place the requisite financial guarantees and these have been approved by FIFA - all of its projects have been approved and the programmes are within the time frame established by the organising committee," Teixeira went on. Sports Minister Ricardo Silva said: "A new Brazil is ready to charm all of you in 2014." He added that 2014 would be a very important moment for Brazil, which is increasingly becoming a world power with a growing economy and burgeoning middle class. Rio itself will welcome the first ever Olympic Games to South America just two years after the World Cup and the city hopes that the two sporting jamboreees combined will give it the kind of facelift which so benefited Barcelona after the 1992 Games. There remain, however, concerns about security and transport - with the country's airport capacity already saturated and requiring a massive upgrade before it can cope with hundreds of thousands of fans. Teixeira meanwhile hit out at the British media after a BBC Panorama programme alleged he benefited from payments from collapsed FIFA marketing company ISL which went to the wall in 2001. Former English Football Association chairman Lord Triesman also alleged in in the British Parliament that he and other FIFA members improper demands during England's bid to stage the 2018 World Cup, though a FIFA investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing. Several British reporters hoping for an interview with the FIFA executive committee member after his statements Friday were given the cold shoulder. "No English press - they're corrupt," he huffed.