Rio 2016 and Sport Legacies
The legacies of the Olympic Games for
youth at-risk in Rio de Janeiro
Arianne C. Reis & Fabiana R. Sousa-Mast
FINAL RESEARCH REPORT
RIO 2016 AND SPORT LEGACIES
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................... iii
DISCLAIMER ................................................................................ iv
ABSTRACT .................................................................................. v
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................... vi
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1
Research Objectives................................................................... 2
Contribution to Academic Knowledge .............................................. 3
Impact on the Olympic Movement .................................................. 4
LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................... 5
Sport Participation as a Legacy of the Olympic Games .......................... 5
Public Policy for Sport and Physical Activity Participation ...................... 9
Rio 2016 and the Sport Participation Legacy .................................... 11
METHODOLOGY .......................................................................... 14
Study context ........................................................................ 14
Vilas Olímpicas .................................................................. 14
Cidade de Deus .................................................................. 15
Data Collection ......................................................................
Focus Groups.....................................................................
Other Primary Data — Observations ..........................................
Secondary Data ..................................................................
Data Analysis .........................................................................
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.............................................................
The Vilas Olímpicas and their Context............................................
Vila Olímpica da Maré ..........................................................
Vila Olímpica da Gamboa ......................................................
Vila Olímpica Clara Nunes .....................................................
Vila Olímpica Professor Manoel José Gomes Tubino .......................
16
16
19
19
19
21
21
21
22
23
24
Vilas Olímpicas and the Sport Participation Legacy ............................
Vilas Olímpicas are Good for Your Health! ..................................
Lack of Investment and Maintenance ........................................
Priorities .........................................................................
Public Sport Programmes in Cidade de Deus .....................................
Segundo Tempo..................................................................
PELC/Pronasci ...................................................................
Academia da Praça ..............................................................
Rio em Forma Olímpico ........................................................
Sport Participation in Action .......................................................
Discontinuity and Instability ..................................................
Public-Private Partnerships....................................................
25
25
28
30
34
34
35
36
37
39
39
40
CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................ 42
REFERENCES .............................................................................. 44
FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING ............................................................... 51
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank the Olympic Studies Centre for supporting this project through the 2012 edition of the
Postgraduate Research Grant Programme. We are grateful also to all participants of this study who
shared their experiences and knowledge with us during the course of this project; this research
would not have happened without them. We would like to also acknowledge the immense
support provided by Marcelo C. Vieira, who acted as more than a research assistant, but as an
integral part of the team, being our point of reference in Rio de Janeiro throughout our study.
Pedro Lyra has also provided invaluable support in the field as well as in transcribing the focus
group interviews. Lastly, we would like to thank Hannah Murphy for her editorial assistance.
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DISCLAIMER
As this report presents the culmination of a series of inter-related work led by the two grant
recipients, sections of it have been used to build stand-alone, shorter pieces, which have, at the
time of writing, been either accepted or submitted for publication in academic journals. Below are
the full references for these articles:
Reis, A.C., Sousa Mast, F.R., & Gurgel, L.A. (forthcoming). Rio 2016 and the sport participation
legacies. Leisure Studies.
Sousa Mast, F.R., Reis, A.C., Gurgel, L.A., & Duarte, A.F.P.L.A. (forthcoming). Research Note: Are
cariocas getting ready for the Games? Sport participation and the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic
Games. Managing Leisure.
Reis, A.C., Sousa Mast, F.R., & Vieira, M.C. (under review). Public policies and sports in
marginalised communities: The case of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. World Leisure
Journal.
We hope to submit in the near future other journal articles based on material included in this
report. Evidently, full acknowledgement of this report and its funding source will be included in all
relevant publications.
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ABSTRACT
Three years after the announcement of Rio de Janeiro as the host city of the 2016 Olympic Games
and less than four years prior to the event taking place, seems to be an appropriate time to ask
how the local population perceive the current and potential legacies of Rio 2016 will affect their
sport participation rates, particularly for children and youth. This study was developed following a
case study approach focusing on four public sport facilities, the Vilas Olímpicas, and on the
challenges faced by the users of these facilities within the context of the city’s ‘sport decade’. In
addition, all government-funded sport programmes available within Cidade de Deus, a low-income
community located on the fringes of one of the Vila Olímpicas as well as bordering the location of
the future Rio 2016 Olympic Park, were further investigated. Results indicate that, despite being
one of the key areas of the Rio 2016 Legacy Plan, sport development initiatives aimed at
promoting sport participation have not, so far, been extensively felt or successful in reaching the
people who are in most need. It seems, therefore, that increasing mass sport participation in Rio
de Janeiro is not ranking highly in the legacy agenda.
Keywords: sport participation, Rio 2016, low-income communities, youth, Olympic Games, legacy
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The study presented here contributes to the Olympic Studies’ field by discussing the sport
participation legacy of the Olympic Games. In particular, this study focused on government-funded
projects and programmes aimed at increasing sport participation rates among children and youth
of low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro, the host of the 2016 Olympic Games.
This study was developed following a case study approach, focusing on four sport facilities of the
same government-funded programme, the Vilas Olímpicas, and on the challenges and issues faced
by the users of these facilities. Cidade de Deus, a low-income community located on the fringes of
one of the investigated Vilas Olímpicas as well as bordering the location of the future Rio 2016
Olympic Park, was focused on in more detail. An investigation of all other publicly-funded sport
programmes offered in this community was included in the analysis in order to provide a broader
view of the sport opportunities available to children and youth in low-income communities in Rio
de Janeiro.
Results from the focus groups were organised into three main themes. Results from theme 1
indicate that health, including mental health, is one of the main reasons why parents take their
children to participate in Vilas Olímpicas’ activities. Results under this theme confirm previous
research that suggests that sport policies need to be consistent and recurrent if they are to
achieve the aim of increasing participation. Additionally, in order to increase levels of participation
among children and youth, parents also need to be targeted, particularly to increase awareness of
the benefits of sport participation for health.
The second theme that emerged from the focus groups was the lack of investment in sport
programmes by the government, and more specifically on the Vilas Olímpicas themselves. All Vilas
Olímpicas presented infrastructural issues and apart from the newly built Vila Olímpica Professor
Manoel José Gomes Tubino, all other Vilas Olímpicas were in dire need of maintenance and
infrastructural repair. Another issue raised by participants was the commonplace ‘waste’ of public
money in facilities that are subsequently abandoned by the government. Participants in our study
frequently mentioned the ‘white elephants’ created by the Pan-American Games, which will not
even be used for Rio 2016, as a point of comparison. When asked what they wished for in terms of
a sport legacy from Rio 2016, participants were unanimous in choosing the continuation of the Vila
Olímpica programme in their community, with higher levels of investment in infrastructure and
personnel. This response not only highlights the problems of investment but also stresses the
value of the Vilas Olímpicas for these communities.
The third theme emerging from the focus group revealed that although most participants were
extremely positive about the experience of having major events such as the Olympic Games being
held in the city, when probed to discuss the impacts of the events on their lives, very few
recognised the potential for increasing interest in sport and sport participation. There was
certainly a hope for the continuation of the Vilas Olímpicas and for more investment in sport
programmes, but few participants associated the event with, or expected the event to bring,
improvements in this area. Therefore, even though research participants are actively engaged in a
government-funded sport programme that has the purported aim of promoting the Olympic ideals
of education, health and social inclusion through sport, they have not perceived much effort being
directed to leverage the hosting of the Olympic Games to promote these Olympic values to the
wider population: the focus seems to lie solely on infrastructural changes.
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Within this context, most of our study’s participants indicated that Rio de Janeiro has other more
pressing issues to be dealt with than preparing the city to host a sport mega-event. Instead of
large scale investments in constructing new sport facilities not long after the city went through a
series of construction works for the 2007 Pan-American Games, the focus should be on improving
basic services for the local population, such as the health and education systems as well as public
security.
The analysis of the other publicly-funded sport programmes available in one of the four lowincome communities visited provided further elements for discussion. The two main themes that
emerged from this phase of the study were: 1) discontinuity and instability, and 2) public-private
partnerships.
Results from the first theme confirmed previous studies that indicate that sport policies in Brazil
are highly dependent on political will, with contingencies, programmes and projects typically being
interrupted or significantly modified with every new election. Even within the context of political
stability experienced in Brazilian national government for the past 10 years, ‘on the ground’
experiences seem far from stable and long-term, as our results suggest.
The second theme that emerged from the close investigation of Cidade de Deus sport programmes
refers to the ‘sub-contractual’ nature of most government actions, transferring some of its own
responsibilities to the private sector. Problems of discontinuity can emerge from this process, as
private ‘sponsors’ do not have to make a long-term commitment to supporting a specific chosen
project. Second, private businesses’ interest in the ‘visibility’ of the project and its marketing
potential may lead to small-scale projects, or projects located outside important consumer
markets, unable to find sponsors to support their activities. Issues of uneven distribution of
resources is also of concern, as each project proponent (typically non-government organisations
— NGOs) are responsible for finding their own sponsors — a task that will likely favour individuals
and institutions who possess strong networks within the private sector. As a consequence,
community groups, particularly those in small and poor areas, will have little chance of getting
their projects financed.
The study concludes that, despite being one of the key aims of hosting the Olympic Games in Rio
de Janeiro, sport development initiatives listed in the Rio 2016 Legacy Plan have not so far been
extensively felt or successful in reaching the people who are in most need. In addition, our results
indicate that there is an overarching ideology behind the planning and delivery of mega-events
and their legacies in Rio de Janeiro guided by a Western economic development philosophy that
uses these events as neoliberal tools for growth. As a consequence, priorities are subverted and
instead of public money being spent in education and health, including through mass-participation
sport programmes, it is spent in stadia construction that are of peripheral importance in a scheme
of priorities for the city. We therefore conclude that the exceptional case of international
exposure through sport mega-events certainly lies within a political agenda that seeks more than
just the purported social gains these events may bring. Increasing mass sport participation in Rio
de Janeiro is certainly not ranking highly in any such agenda.
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INTRODUCTION
Brazilian society has experienced significant economic development in the past 10 years, leading
to important changes in the social structures found in this country. Within the context of a
stronger economy, social programmes were implemented by the Brazilian Government to help
improve the social and economic conditions of the most marginalised individuals of the
population. As a consequence, Brazilian society experienced an upward movement of citizens
from lower social classes to what is now a strong middle class (Marques & Mendes, 2007).
However, although these changes have increased the consumption power of a large share of the
Brazilian population (Costa, 2009) they did little to reduce other important social problems such as
illiteracy, crime, lack of housing, basic sanitation and health care (Costa, 2009; Marques &
Mendes, 2007). As Darnell (2012, p. 871) aptly points out, ‘despite the recent rapid economic
growth, Brazil’s GINI coefficient in 2009 [55.0] remained relatively unchanged from its 1982 levels
(57.4) suggesting that the boons of its economic growth have yet to be enjoyed by the marginal
classes.’ The infamous favelas (shanty towns) around the country have therefore experienced
significant changes, but their marginality within the wider community and the dramatic social
differences between their inhabitants and those of the high rises of the more privileged
neighbourhoods remain practically unaltered (Perlman, 2006).
Parallel to the economic improvements, Brazil has also excelled on the world stage as a country of
sport mega-events, and media is increasingly portraying this to be the ‘sport decade’ for Brazilian
society (Silva & Pires, 2009). In 2007 Brazil held the biggest multi-sport event in the Americas, the
Pan American Games, and in the following decade it will host two of the largest sport events in the
world: the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. These events demand large scale
investments in order to reach the infrastructural standards expected from host cities. Thus, great
amounts of public money have been allocated to regenerating host cities in order to fulfil FIFA’s
and the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) requirements (Horne, 2012). Moreover, due to
the staging of these mega-events, sport has been at the centre of many Brazilian Government
actions and it may further lead to other economic and social changes.
The study of mega-events, particularly the Olympic Games, has taken a new direction in the past
20 years. The recurrent use of the term ‘legacy’ in Olympic bids and in public discussions about the
value of staging these events has led researchers to move from an impact assessment focus to a
broader discussion of leveraging sport events for the construction/production/creation of longlasting and sustainable legacies (Chalip, 2004). However, despite the increase in interest in this
field of research, there is still a significant gap in knowledge when it comes to the less tangible
legacies of these events (Poynter, 2006). As several scholars have pointed out, intangible legacies
are significantly more complex to measure and evaluate, and therefore more difficult to plan for
and predict (Atkinson, Mourato, Szymanski & Ozdemirogly, 2008; Sadd & Jones, 2009).
The study presented here is intended to contribute to the Olympic Studies field by discussing an
oft-cited but rarely explored intangible legacy of the Olympic Games: the sport participation
legacy. The aim of the overall research programme is to conduct an investigation of the
perceptions of Rio de Janeiro residents of the sport participation legacy to be derived from hosting
the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Summer Olympic Games (from this point on referred to as Rio 2016). In
particular, this study focused on government-funded projects and programmes aimed at
increasing sport participation rates among children and youth of low-income communities of Rio
de Janeiro, and whether or not programmes with this aim promised by the Olympic Bidding
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Committee for Rio 2016 are effectively reaching the young residents of at-risk communities in Rio
de Janeiro.
According to the Rio 2016 Bid Book, significant legacies were already being delivered during the
bidding process and therefore should be able to be perceived by some groups of the population.
Now, three years after the announcement of Rio de Janeiro as the host city of the 2016 Summer
Olympic Games, and less than four years prior to the event taking place, we believe is a good time
to start asking the question: how does the population perceive current, potential and expected
legacies of Rio 2016 will affect the sport participation rates of the local population of cariocas
(inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro)? By asking this question at this early stage in the process of
delivering the legacy promises found in the candidature file and official government documents,
we hope to make a contribution to the planning, development and delivery of legacies that will
benefit a broad range of the population. As Ritchie (2000, p. 156) rightly points out, ‘careful and
realistic planning is essential in order to realize positive rather than negative legacies’, and should
be initiated years prior to the start of the event itself. Moreover, by focusing on youth at-risk we
will also be contributing to a field of study that has not received sufficient input from academia;
that is, the intangible legacies of the Olympic Games for socially excluded groups (Minnaert,
2012).
Research Objectives
The specific objectives of this study have evolved from the initial proposal to better align with the
realities encountered in the field. Our aim with this slight change is to do justice to the people we
talked to by focusing on issues that they raised as relevant and primordial. In doing so we believe
we are also providing the Olympic Movement with a more accurate and significant description and
discussion of some momentous issues associated with youth and the sport participation legacy of
the Olympic Games.
Within the main aim of investigating how at-risk youth in Rio de Janeiro are being exposed to and
engaging with sport and physical activity in the context of the upcoming Olympic Games in the
city, the following research objectives were delineated:





To investigate the awareness of members of low-income communities of Rio de Janeiro of
programmes implemented by public organisations to foster sport participation, particularly
those under the ‘sport legacy programme’ of the Rio 2016 candidature file;
To evaluate how effective these programmes are in reaching young people from at-risk
communities in Rio de Janeiro;
To identify the expectations of members of low-income communities of the sport
participation legacies of Rio 2016, particularly as it regards to children and youth;
To identify programmes with the Olympic message as their underlying theme developed
and implemented by public agencies in one particular at-risk community in Rio de Janeiro;
and
To analyse how these reflect the public policies for sport being implemented by the
different levels of Brazilian Government in light of the upcoming 2016 Olympic Games.
To answer these questions a case study approach was adopted with mixed-methods being used to
collect data. Focus groups with members of four different low-income communities in Rio de
Janeiro were conducted, as well as informal interviews with several members of one of these
communities, which was selected for closer surveying. Several visits to the communities were also
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undertaken and helped to inform the discussions presented later in this report. A thorough
analysis of previous host cities’ sport legacy proposals was also included in the methodology, being
presented particularly in the literature review and discussion sections. Further details about the
methodology are described below in the appropriate section.
Contribution to Academic Knowledge
Academic knowledge in the field of sport participation legacy is extremely scarce (Murphy &
Bauman, 2007). A systematic review conducted by a group of scholars from the Canterbury Christ
Church University in England concluded that:
[...] the direct evidence base to inform the development of physical activity, sport and health
legacies from the 2012 [Olympic] Games is poor. Therefore there is a clear need for more
sustained research and more robust evaluation to inform the development of such legacies
(Weed, Coren, & Fiore, 2009, p. 58).
There is a call, therefore, from academic researchers that more studies are conducted in the field
of sport participation legacies if we are to contribute to planners’ and managers’ efforts to
maximise the opportunities presented by the Olympic Games to host cities to improve their
physical activity participation rates. For instance, according to a report from the National
Australian Bureau of Statistics, there was no change in sport/physical activity participation rates
among Australians before or after the staging of the Olympic Games in Sydney (Vanden Heuvel &
Conolly, 2001). In general, the few studies available in this field indicate little to no effect of major
sport events on physical activity behaviour. Specifically, no research to date has focused on a
particular group of the larger local population, and children and young people have been
completely absent from studies in this field.
Within this context, the long-term approach taken by the programme of research in which this
project is situated aims not only to provide more research-based evidence of the sport
participation legacy of the Olympic Games, but also to provide valid and accurate information for
planners and managers of Rio 2016 well in advance in order to encourage best practices and more
effective approaches to promoting physical activity participation for the young local population
using the Olympic Games as their strategy to attract and motivate these youth. In this way we
expect to contribute to the academic knowledge in the field by tackling not only the issue of sport
participation legacy but also of young people’s involvement with the Olympic message of active
and healthy living.
The papers listed below, arising from this study, have been already submitted for publication or
for presentation in academic conferences. A tangible contribution to knowledge in the field has,
therefore, already started to be delivered. Others will certainly follow.
Reis, A.C., Sousa Mast, F.R., & Vieira, M.C. (under review). Public policies and sports in
marginalised communities: The case of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. World Leisure
Journal.
Sousa Mast, F.R.; Reis, A.C., & Vieira, M. (under review). Sport and physical activity programs in
marginalised communities: The case of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Le Cinquiènne Congrès Annuel du
la Société Suisse des Sciences du Sport. Basel, SUI, 14-15 February 2013.
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Reis, A.C.; Sousa Mast, F.R., & Vieira, M. (2012). Legacies of the Olympic Games for youth atrisk in Rio de Janeiro. ATLAS Annual Conference 2012: Re-creating the Global City – Tourism,
Leisure and Mega-Events in the Transformation of 21st Century Cities. London, UK, 12-15
September 2012.
Sousa Mast, F.R.; Reis, A.C.; Costa, F.R., & Vieira, M. (2012). Brazilian sport policies in
marginalized communities: a case study of Cidade de Deus. XIV Congress of the International
Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport: Sport and Physical Education Around
the Globe – Past, Present and Future. Rio de Janeiro, BR, July 9-13, 2012.
Impact on the Olympic Movement
Despite the lack of evidence in the academic literature of sport participation legacies from hosting
the Olympic Games, claims of benefits in this regard still abound in the public sphere. Using the
last Olympic host city as an example, the intangible ‘sport legacy’ has been a core component of
the discussions about Olympic legacies in London: increasing opportunities for local residents to
become involved in sport was one of five legacy promises made by the Mayor (Keogh, 2009;
London Assembly, 2010). However, as Coalter (2004) points out, and a report from London
Assembly’s Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee indicates, results so
far do not seem promising:
[…] levels of participation in sport and active recreation are lower in all but one of the Olympic
host boroughs than across the whole of London. Since London won the bid to stage the 2012
Games, participation across the city has remained stable, while it has fallen in three of the five
host boroughs […] The results also show that, nationally, participation among people with
disabilities has also declined, from 6.7 per cent to 6.1 per cent. (London Assembly, 2010, p. 43)
Thus, activities aimed at leveraging sport participation prior to and after the games are vital for
post-event legacies in this field — otherwise the hype caused by the event itself will soon fade
away as no long-term benefits can be sustained without long-term planning (Davies, 2012; Ritchie,
2000). The IOC, in its Olympic Charter and manuals for candidate cities for hosting the Olympic
Games, emphasises the potential legacy accrued from hosting the Games in improving sport
participation and, as a consequence, in promoting the (potential) healthy values of sport and of
the Olympic Movement. It is therefore crucial to investigate if these legacies are indeed being
achieved by host cities if we are to understand more thoroughly the intangible benefits of hosting
the Olympic Games. The aim of this research is to contribute in this direction and investigate if the
message of healthy living through sport participation is indeed reaching the Rio de Janeiro
population or if more work needs to be done to achieve the so desired sport participation legacy.
Research participants are also expected to benefit from an increased understanding in regards to
the impacts of hosting sport mega-events in their local communities. They are now better
informed about the proposed legacies of Rio 2016 and are better equipped to demand from their
local government that promises are in fact delivered. This research intends also to present the Rio
de Janeiro community with a critical discussion of ‘Olympic Legacies’, particularly as they relate to
sport, recreation and leisure participation. By reflecting on the results presented, the community
will be better informed to constructively assess political strategies, management plans and other
issues related to the Olympic Games in their home city. In addition, the knowledge produced and
disseminated may influence policymakers and those charged with implementing policies (e.g.
public servants, teachers, architects and town planners) to align their actions with the needs of the
city’s residents.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature review below covers different aspects related to the topic of sport participation and
the Olympic Games. First, we discuss how the concept of sport participation legacy has evolved in
academic and non-academic discourse of the Olympic Games and review what previous studies
have presented in this field. Subsequently, we move on to discuss sport policies, particularly in the
Brazilian context, in order to bring the reader to the particularities in which this study is situated.
Sport Participation as a Legacy of the Olympic Games
As the Olympic Movement’s main goal is ‘to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by
educating youth through sport’ (IOC, 2011, p. 13), one key legacy to consider is the sport
participation legacy, now commonly found in Olympic bids (Minnaert, 2012). Although the sport
participation legacy of the Olympic Games has been more or less assumed in previous years,
intensive efforts to leverage the Olympic Games to increase sport participation among the
population is a recent phenomenon. The London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) is
considered the first to have put forth a concerted plan to increase physical activity participation
rates in London and other parts of the country using the Olympic Games as a catalyst for change
(Weed et al., 2009). In the London 2012 candidature file, three out of four of the event’s stated
priorities were directly related to sport, two of them clearly focusing on increasing participation
rates: ‘harnessing London’s passion for sport’ and ‘creating a legacy to transform sport in the UK’
(London 2012, 2004, p. 15). On the ‘Responses to the Questionnaire for cities applying to become
Candidate cities to host the Games of the XXX Olympiad and the Paralympic Games in 2012’,
LOCOG affirmed that hosting the event in London ‘would enhance sport in London and the United
Kingdom forever’ (London 2012, 2004, p. 1), clearly demonstrating the unheard of focus on a
sporting legacy. These ambitious aims were maintained throughout London’s preparation and
indeed are still very much alive in the aftermath of the event, even though the UK’s Department
for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) acknowledged in 2007 (House of Commons, 2007, p. 37) that
‘no host country has yet been able to demonstrate a direct benefit from the Olympic Games in the
form of a lasting increase in participation.’
Along these lines, the Legacy Evaluation Framework adopted by DCMS positions ‘sport and
physical activity’ as the first of four ‘outcome areas’ for which specific evaluation measures are
defined, highlighting the significance the UK Government, together with LOCOG, has posited on
leveraging the Games for sport development. The efforts of the UK Government are
representative of this new effort to leverage sport legacies not only because of their innovative
focus on leveraging the Games to consistently promote participation in sports and physical
activity, but also due to their long-term commitment. After the London 2012 Games were over,
the government maintained its focus on delivering a sport development legacy, and despite critical
assessments of what has been delivered so far (Girginov & Hills, 2008; Hughes, 2012), it is
incontestable that these are pioneer efforts in Olympic Games’ history (Weed et al., 2009). After
the Games were over, the Minister of State for Sport and Tourism, Hugh Robertson, released a
Ministerial Written Statement (DCMS, 2012, p. 1) presenting a 10-point sporting legacy plan to
‘deliver on the commitment to ‘Inspire a Generation’ and secure a lasting legacy’.
As these are recent developments, it is hard to indicate their efficiency. Furthermore, it is not
within the scope of the present study to make an analysis of London’s efforts (for a more
comprehensive analysis of London 2012’s sport legacy programme see Bullough, 2012; Keech,
2012; Hughes, 2012). However, early figures do not seem promising: research conducted by the
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Sport and Recreation Alliance found that three quarters of grassroots sport clubs believe the
government has not done enough to promote sport in the country (Sport and Recreation Alliance,
2012), although more than 80% still expect increases in sport participation after the Games.
According to the same study, which interviewed 475 sport volunteers in the UK, more than 65% of
respondents do not feel that they have benefited from London 2012, although more than 40%
stated noticing an increase in the number of people joining their club since the Games. The latter
result, however, needs to be analysed with care as the survey was conducted only a few weeks
after the event had finished. In any case, the finding that more than half of the interviewed
population indicated that the government had done little to help community sport create a legacy
of participation is still significant.
In this sense it is interesting to review Coalter’s (2004, p. 93) provocative questions in regards to
the ‘model of behaviour change’ that may underpin claims of a sport participation legacy being
achieved from the hosting of sport mega-events:
Is it implying a media-led growth in participation as a result of widespread coverage of the
Olympic Bid? Is it presuming that elite sporting role models will encourage widespread
participation? Is it assuming that the coverage of individual sports will increase their popularity
(even though many Olympic sports are highly technical and/or minority activities)? Why is it
assuming that persistently under-participating groups will be moved to participate and enable
the nation to get fitter and healthier? As the great majority of spectators of any Olympics will
view it via television, what is specific about a London Games?
As mentioned earlier, it seems clear that previous hosts either held as true, one or more of the
above premises or simply did not place enough value on the Olympic Games as catalysts for
change in the field of sport participation. The Beijing 2008 candidature file, for instance, does not
make reference to a particular sport participation legacy, apart from sparse mentions to sports in
general as part of other aims. Under the theme ‘Olympism and Culture’, for example, sport is
mentioned as one of the three Olympic pillars which will inspire and educate Chinese youth.
Programmes for achieving such an aim are presented under the ‘Communications and Educational
Programs’ sub-section, which lists the ‘key ingredients’ of these programmes as being: 1) the
extensive promotion of the Olympic ideals through media, academic/research institutions, events
and a nation-wide fitness programme — which is not expanded upon; 2) promotion of Olympism
through school education; 3) public lectures on Olympic Games-related topics; and 4)
implementation of an athletes’ education programme. Although there is mention to one
programme to increase physical activity participation among the ‘key ingredients’, the reference is
vague at best and no further information is provided anywhere else in the document. Reference to
sport venues being a legacy for sport in the country is alluded to, particularly in volume 3 where
details of competitions are provided, as well as some mention of the idea of the Olympic Games
serving as an inspiration for ‘a new generation of youth athletes from China and around the world’
(Beijing 2000a, p. 9), but no clear plans or strategies are provided. Another official document from
the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, ‘New Beijing, Great Olympics: Highlights of Beijing’s Olympic
candidacy’ (BOBICO, 2007) does not mention sport participation at all, and the ‘Replies to
questionnaire’ (Beijing 2008, 2000b) from the Beijing 2008 Organising Committee does not include
a legacy of any kind. It seems, therefore, reasonable to assume that the Beijing bid, in regards to a
sport participation legacy, was operating under one of the ‘models’ described by Coalter (2004)
above.
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This lack of a concerted focus on a sport development legacy by previous host cities and
applicants, however, is not surprising, despite its alleged significance to the Olympic Movement.
Until the early 2000s, the IOC did not place an emphasis on Olympic legacy planning in general
when assessing bidding cities, let alone on such an intangible and difficult legacy to measure. With
the establishment of the Olympic Games Impact Study (OGI) by the IOC, a stronger weight was
given to the impacts of the Games, now officially and compulsorily measured in a long-term
manner (IOC, 2010). However, as the title of the instrument confirms, there seems to be a focus
more on impacts and less so on legacies, despite the long-term nature of the required study (12
years, initiated two years prior to the host city election and finishing three years after the event is
over). This may be due to the underlying approach of providing future host cities with a knowledge
base from which to develop their planning and management strategies for future events and
therefore prioritising the preparation and delivery of the Games. This may be also due to the fact
that host cities end their contractual obligations with the IOC soon after the event is over, making
it almost unfeasible for the IOC to require a long-term legacy assessment of the Games. In any
case, it is an extremely important IOC measure ‘to advance the potential for positive impacts and
also to further the goals of the Olympic Games Study Commission [...] to deal with the increased
size and popularity of the Games and the related problem of gigantism’ (Cashman, 2006, p. 17).
Similarly to most topics included in the OGI, any assessment of impact of the Games on sport
participation, both in high performance sports and ‘sport-for-all’ activities, are not compulsory.
The theme ‘Sport for All and Elite Sport’ is divided into six focus areas, which comprise: 1) sport
and physical activities, 2) physical education and school sport, 3) sport facilities, 4) top level
sportsmen and women, 5) major sporting events hosted, and 6) case studies and good practices
(IOC, 2010). It therefore covers significant areas in the field of sport participation but falls short
when it relates to making a long-term assessment of sport policies and strategies for achieving the
main aim of increasing sport participation. The ‘type of data needed’ in most cases require
quantitative measures only, with little to no mention of qualitative analysis of the actions being
implemented by the host city to increase participation in sports. Therefore, apart from being a
fairly new instrument (being in full operation only since the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic
Games), consequently only placing some very recent pressure on host cities to better plan and
manage the impact of the Games, it does not stress quality, stability and long-term continuation of
actions and strategies to develop truly sustainable and positive legacies to the host cities. It is,
nonetheless, a step forward and welcomed in addition to the contractual responsibilities of
Olympic Games Organising Committees (OCOGs) towards their host cities, providing some
accountability to the local population.
Academic research in this field is also recent and confirms the lack of emphasis on clear and
effective strategies for increasing sport participation using the Olympic Games as a catalyst for
change. This is despite Frawley and Cush’s (2011, p. 65) claim that ‘one rationale often provided by
governments to justify their investments in such events is that they will encourage their
population to become more physically active through sport participation.’ Dong and Mangan
(2008) concur and suggest that the Beijing Olympic Games benefited young people through
increased sport participation, although these authors do not provide evidence for such a claim.
Smith and Fox (2007) also argued that large scale sport events such as the 2002 Manchester
Commonwealth Games have the potential to reach groups that are commonly more difficult to
engage, and therefore can help access non-participants in sport and physical activity. However,
their claims were not supported by empirical evidence, confirming Weed et al.’s (2007) conclusion
that increases in the level of sport and physical activity participation as a consequence of the
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staging of the Olympic Games have not been empirically demonstrated. Along these lines,
Cornelissen, Bob and Swart (2011) suggest that ex ante research on the 2010 FIFA World Cup
found that the legacy for sport development was potentially negative, with expectations of
exacerbation of inequalities between elite and grassroots football teams and no impact on
women’s football. Post-event research on the same event, according to the authors,
demonstrated that most of the projects established to achieve the sport development aim were
short-lived and therefore ineffective in fostering greater sport participation among the South
African population. Earlier, commenting on the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Toohey (2008, p.
1960) affirmed that it was ‘impossible to conclude that the 2000 Games left a legacy of active
sport-for-all in Australia’ and that ‘the most substantial sport participation-related impact of
[Sydney 2000] was an increase in passive involvement, such as live and television spectating’.
In light of these recurrent findings, Girginov and Hills (2008) argue that to achieve a sustainable
sport participation legacy it is necessary to take a process-oriented approach, and Coalter (2004)
indicates that, usually, those already involved in sport are the ones who show increased levels of
participation from the staging of sport mega-events. More significantly, Girginov and Hills (2009, p.
168) point out that:
[...] different sports and sports organisations will have different capacities to engage with
different aspects of sport legacy and cannot be treated as a singular entity. Similarly, the [aim]
to inspire a new generation of young people to take part in physical activity, will find different
manifestations across the sports sector.
Action is therefore needed from event organisers, policymakers, public managers and other
significant stakeholders to develop a strategy to attract the wider population, or produce and
promote more realistic goals in this regard.
Significantly, most of the academic literature in the area relies on anecdotal evidence with little
empirical work that tries to assess or demonstrate the ‘real-life’ effect of major sport events, and
the Olympic Games in particular, on the patterns of the host population’s participation in
sport/physical activity (London East Research Institute, 2007). We argue, therefore, that in
addition to quantitative measures of physical activity participation — such as the Active People
Survey conducted by Sport England (2012) — qualitative studies are also needed, particularly
those involving key stakeholders, to investigate their perceptions and insights. The lived
experiences explored in qualitative studies are valuable sources for identifying not only the
effectiveness of large-scale sport events on increasing sport participation but also the issues
involved in planning for achieving such a goal. In this context, it is important to keep in mind that
major sport events are not ‘a magic bullet to raise participation in physical activity and sport, or to
encourage positive health behaviours’ (Weed et al., 2009, p. 58). They can, nevertheless,
contribute to sport and physical activity participation if they are carefully considered as one
among a number of factors ‘in a set of complex interactions that are not well understood’ (Weed
et al., 2009, p. 58).
It is accepted, therefore, that sport legacies can be achieved only if there are consistent policies in
place that promote, facilitate and encourage sport and physical activity participation among the
wider population, using the potential of the Olympic Games to inspire, and the concerted national
effort in place to leverage the Olympic Games in different aspects of society. It is thus crucial to
investigate how Brazilian sport policies have been positioned to achieve the goal of increasing
participation in the context of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
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Public Policy for Sport and Physical Activity Participation
Public policies are actions structured by governmental, non-governmental and private sector
organisations that intend to achieve goals supported by specific strategies. Public policies
determine how the environment should be modified to obtain desired outcomes and define the
responsibilities of involved actors, as well as the allocation of resources (Schöppe, Bauman, & Bull,
2004). Milio (2001) notes that public policy can be formal or legal, and Schöppe et al. (2004) add
that policy can be expressed in written form (such as legislation and other policy documents) or on
an unwritten basis, for example through practical programmes.
Research has shown that public policies concerning physical activity are important to develop
strategies that stop the trend of an increasing sedentary lifestyle, because solely individualoriented behavioural change strategies produce small effects on levels of physical activity of the
population (Owen, Humpel, Leslie, Bauman, & Sallis, 2004; Sallis, et al., 2006). Authors such as
Schöppe et al. (2004) infer that the impact of public policies on physical activity are influenced by
many sectors, such as those concerned with health, sport and recreation, education and also
transport, environment and economy, and that therefore there is a need to orient public policies
more towards an active lifestyle.
Thus, sport and physical activity policy can be understood as a formal statement that positions
sport and physical activity as a priority, states specific population targets, and provides a specific
plan or framework for action. These actions determine the procedures of institutions in the
government, non-government and private sectors to promote sport and physical activity in the
population, and define the accountability of the involved partners.
Sport and physical activity promotion has featured frequently on the Brazilian public policy agenda
since the beginning of the twentieth century. Initially guided by eugenic and hygienist conceptions
of physical activity (Melo, 2005b), in the late 1930s, with the first military regime, the focus of
public policies in this field turned to competitive sports, particularly football (Bueno, 2008), as a
source of diversion and spectacle for the population — the infamous ‘bread and circus’ approach
(Murphy & Bauman, 2007; Pecenin, 2008; Soares Filho, 2010). Significantly, physical education in
schools was also emphasised by the government of this period, but the curriculum was almost
entirely directed to competitive sports and to building stronger citizens to fit the military character
of the country/government. In addition, that was the first time in Brazil’s history that the state
became fully responsible for regulating and controlling sports entities (Deccache-Maia, 2006), an
action motivated by the acknowledgement of the significance of sport as an instrument for
legitimising dominant ideologies, in this case the military government project (Bueno, 2008). This
state-based control and regulation still predominates in contemporary Brazil (Knijnik & Tavares,
2012).
Since then, physical activity, recreation, sport and active leisure have, in general, been reduced to
(competitive) sport practice in Brazilian public policies (Melo, 2005b), until very recently when a
stronger link between physical activity and health was advocated by different segments of society
(Peres, Bodstein, Ramos & Marcondes, 2005). This recent slight change in approach, however, has
not been able to undermine the predominance of competitive sports as a focus for public policies
in this area or the dominant discourse in Brazilian society that equates physical activity, active
leisure and recreation to sport practice.
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The inclusion of sport as a social right in the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 provided an important
step towards improving equal access to physical activity and sport. The presence of leisure and
sport as social rights alongside the traditional ones, such as health, education and housing, in the
final text of the 1988 Constitution was certainly a consequence of the democratisation process
taking place in Brazil at the time, after 20 years of military dictatorship. Melo (2005b) argues that
as a consequence of this act the right to sport became also part of the population’s demands and
the creation and/or expansion of sport and leisure programmes became a part of society’s
requirements. The problem, however, lies in operationalising this constitutional right and
developing policies that in fact contribute to making this right effectively available to all. In Brazil
this has proven particularly difficult, with sport and leisure promotion keeping their marginal
position within a political context that prioritises economic and short-term measurable outcomes
(Werle, 2010).
According to Brust, Baggio and Saldanha Filho (2006), in recent years sport and leisure policies
have been increasingly present in the Brazilian political discourse in order to meet a social demand
for enhancing leisure and sport opportunities for the urban population. This claim is evidenced in
the creation, in 2003, of the Ministry of Sport in the federal government, with its own annual
budget allocation, which frequently matches or even surpasses other more traditional portfolios
such as Culture and even Security (Almeida, 2010). Despite such a trend, sport and leisure policy
implementation has not been effective in most cases, particularly if investments are analysed
beyond funding of events and competitive sports (Sawitzki, 2012). Melo (2005b) argues that
internal conflicts within and between public administration bodies, which have on paper moved
away from high performance to a more populist approach to sport policy development, can be
partially blamed for this situation. Although the ‘official’ focus in the country, particularly in the
past 10 years of Labour Party ruling, has shifted to providing more ‘democratic’ opportunities, in
practice the ingrained culture of always associating development in this area with ‘gold medals’
has hindered an effective change in action and the successful implementation of accessible and
transformative sport policies. In addition, although popular demand for more governmental action
in this realm has increased, within a context of high levels of poverty and lack of, or poor access to,
other basic rights (e.g. health, housing, education), leisure and sports are not prioritised by
community groups when fighting for their rights (Amaral, 2005).
Even if surrounded by the abovementioned administrative barriers, public sport departments at
the federal, state and municipal levels are still the main agencies to establish and fund concrete
actions aimed at increasing sport participation by the Brazilian population. These agencies
generally are responsible for developing public policies, implementing sport/physical activity
programmes, building and maintaining public sport facilities, as well as supporting sport events.
Since the second half of the 2000s, with a series of major sport events being hosted in the country,
and particularly in Rio, investments in new sport infrastructure, especially large sport stadia and
facilities, have been ever increasing. These investments, however, are easily noticeable not only
because of their large scale but also due to the controversy commonly surrounding them:
recurrent formal embezzlement complaints, issues of overspending, privatisation of publiclyfunded infrastructure and the creation of ‘white elephants’ are but a few problems raised by the
Brazilian media, activist groups and academics studying the matter (Behnken & Godoy, 2009;
Benedicto, 2009; Mascarenhas & Borges, 2009; Reis & DaCosta, 2012).
Less apparent than the infrastructure investments are the policies, programmes and projects
focused on what can be referred to as ‘sport for all’, or the implementation of actions that bring
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sports if not to all segments of the population, at least to those who are most in need (Marcellino,
2001). It is to these that we turn our attention when presenting the results of our study.
Rio 2016 and the Sport Participation Legacy
Previous efforts coming from Brazil to host the Olympic Games did not place significant attention
on sport participation as a legacy to be planned for, but mentions of sport policies were frequently
included, some of which alluded to potential participation legacies. For instance, the bid in 1991
for the 2000 Olympic Games made by the capital city, Brasília (Comissão Pró-Brasília 2000, 1991),
included a sub-section under the theme ‘National and International Characteristics’ that discussed
the Brazilian sport policy context, including what was inferred to be ongoing plans for providing
better opportunities for sport participation to children and youth. The text was elusive and short,
demonstrating the lack of importance given to the topic amongst other priorities.
The following bids made by a Brazilian city to host the Olympic Games came from Rio de Janeiro,
to host the 2004 and the 2012 Games, the latter following the successful candidature of the city to
host the 2007 Pan-American Games. This time a more detailed document, several mentions were
made to potential legacies, but none of them were explicitly related to sport development. In fact,
the term was used quite loosely and the document provided no clear indication of actual plans
and strategies to leverage the Games for anything other than infrastructural reforms (Rio 2012,
2004).
In the particular case of Rio 2016, the Bid Book highlights that hosting the 2016 Summer Olympic
Games will be a great opportunity for Brazilian society, and for cariocas more specifically, to
enhance the quality of life of its young population through sport participation (Rio 2016, 2009). In
addition, this document mentions that sport programmes for youth, based on ‘Olympic values’,
can be a tool for social inclusion and education and will therefore be prioritised by the organising
committee as a legacy outcome of the Olympic Games. In fact, two of the five key strategies
identified in the Bid Book to realise Rio 2016’s proposed vision involve sport participation legacies.
More significantly, out of the four major legacies planned and presented in the Bid Book, two are
directly related to a sport participation legacy; the main one, ‘legacy for sport’, is the only one that
receives a separate sub-section and has a detailed explanation of the type of legacies envisioned.
Interestingly, all ‘legacies for sport’ mentioned in this section of the document refer to elite sport
participation (Rio 2016, 2009), reinforcing the restricted (Brazilian policy) vision of what sport
participation is. The health and educational benefits of mass sport/physical activity participation
so promoted by the IOC (2008, 2011), particularly through its ‘Sport for All’ programme, seem to
be disregarded.
This focus on competitive and elite sport may be explained by the characteristic of the organising
committee itself, which is composed mainly of members of the Brazilian Olympic Committee
(BOC). BOC receives large sums of public money (through lottery funds and sport incentive laws)
to invest in sports, but efforts are mostly directed to high performance training. The other major
investments made by BOC are in the Olimpíadas Escolares (School Olympics) and Jogos
Universitários Brasileiros (Brazilian University Games), which are ‘mini-Olympic Games’ between
schools and universities across the country respectively. Again, although reaching a wider group,
these Games are known for their highly competitive nature and high performance focus, and for,
in the end, reaching mostly the children and youth who are already practicing sports competitively
outside school/university (Almeida & Marchi Jr, 2012).
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Other institutions in Brazil mandated with the task of promoting sport and physical activity
practice are the sports departments found in most city councils and in all state governments, as
well as the Ministry of Sport, which is the highest agency in the country to look after sport
promotion and to develop sport participation policies.
There are, however, two new public agencies that were created after the Olympic Games were
awarded to Rio: the Autoridade Pública Olímpica (Olympic Public Authority — APO) and the
Empresa Olímpica Municipal (Municipal Olympic Company — EOM). The APO was established
through a federal Government Act in the first semester of 2011 and its mission is to:
[…] coordinate the participation of the Union, the State of Rio de Janeiro and the city of Rio de
Janeiro in preparing and staging the 2016 Games, especially for ensuring compliance with the
obligations assumed by them before the International Olympic Committee and the
International Paralympic Committee for these purposes. (APO, 2012, n/p [translated by the
authors])
From its official mission statement it is clear that its purpose is not to develop strategies or policies
to leverage the Olympic Games for any sector (e.g. sport participation, tourism, construction,
transportation, etc.), but to monitor the work that is being done by the different levels of
government in order to ensure that contractual obligations are met. Their ‘coordination’ mandate,
however, may assist in bringing together the different levels of government to work cooperatively
to achieve similar goals, one of which may be to increase sport participation in Rio. Unfortunately,
actions have so far been slow and, in mid-2012 when we visited the APO, less than one third of the
predicted staff had been hired and the budget for the different departments within the APO had
not yet been finalised (APO staff, personal communication, April 30, 2012).
The EOM also was created in 2011, this time through a Local Government Act, and its role is ‘to
coordinate the execution of activities and projects implemented by the municipal government that
relate to the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games’ (Empresa Olímpica Municipal, 2012, n/p
[translated by the authors]). There are nine projects under their portfolio, with three of them
characterised as ‘social development’ projects. Among these three, one focuses on sport
participation: Rio em Forma Olímpico (Rio in Olympic Shape), which will be presented in more
detail later in this report.
There is one other project under the umbrella of EOM that can be associated with the promotion
of sport participation: the Parque Madureira (Madureira Park). Parque Madureira was inaugurated
in June 2012 and has received, so far, great support from the local population. The park covers
93,000 m2 and has volleyball and basketball courts, football fields, a cycle track and a skate park,
among other amenities. It is located in the north zone of the city, where lower levels of income
and social inclusion are found, and in a region with high population density and overcrowded
spaces. It is therefore a significant contribution to leisure and sport practice in this region, where
few opportunities and spaces are found for physical activity engagement.
Although these are certainly welcome contributions to the delivery of sport participation legacies,
from EOM’s portfolio it seems that focus has been placed, again and expectedly, in infrastructural
reform, with 15 out of 18 projects being in this area. Moreover, being established with an enddate (2016), the few social projects implemented are clearly not being planned as long-term and
part of a wider policy that sees sport participation as an essential part of the city’s social fabric and
a constitutional right. In fact, Olympic values and ideals are not mentioned anywhere in the
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institution’s mandate or official documents found in their official website (Empresa Olímpica
Municipal, 2012). Even the one project that specifically focuses on sport participation does not
present sport as a means for human development, health and education, demonstrating the lack
of focus on the potential long-term benefits of these programmes if they are indeed planned and
implemented as long-term government actions.
In order to better assess how effective this and other programmes implemented by public
organisations to foster sport participation are in reaching young people from low-income
communities in Rio de Janeiro as well as to identify the expectations of members of these
communities of the sport participation legacies of Rio 2016 we move to the next section, which
details the procedures taken to reach these aims.
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METHODOLOGY
This study was developed following a case study approach (Yin, 1981), focusing on four sport
facilities of the same government-funded programme, the Vilas Olímpicas, and on the challenges
and issues faced by the users of each of these facilities within the context of the city’s ‘sport
decade’ (Silva & Pires, 2009). The Vilas Olímpicas are all located in low-income communities inside
the boundaries of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. One case was further investigated. Cidade de
Deus, a low-income community located on the fringes of one of the investigated Vilas Olímpicas as
well as bordering the location of the future Rio 2016 Olympic Park, was focused on particularly
due to its singular position in the geography of the city and also to further inform our research
questions. An investigation of all other publicly-funded sport programmes offered in this
community was included in the analysis in order to provide a broader view of the sport
opportunities available to children and youth in low-income communities of Rio de Janeiro.
According to Yin (1981, p. 58), case studies commonly use evidence from ‘fieldwork, archival
records, verbal reports, observations, or any combination of these’. In the present study we
utilised a combination of primary data, through the employment of focus groups with participating
members of each selected Vila Olímpica, our personal experiences and observations, informal
conversations with low-income community residents, sport managers and instructors, as well as
secondary data, to inform the discussions presented in this report. Publicly available bidding,
budget and planning documents formed a significant part of the secondary data used. These were
sourced from different Brazilian ministries’ and departments’ websites. Most of these documents
were written in Portuguese and their content is translated here where necessary. Another
significant part of the secondary data was retrieved from the Olympic Studies Centre, such as the
IOC’s Executive Board minutes and the Technical Manual on the Olympic Games Impact Study,
among other material from the Centre’s collection.
Study context
Before we describe each data collection method in more detail, it is important to provide the basic
context of each of the study’s sites.
Vilas Olímpicas
The Vilas Olímpicas is a programme funded by the municipal government1 that aims to provide
sport/physical activities in communities where socioeconomic levels are low. Vila Olímpica2 is also
the name used to designate the physical space where the programme is run, commonly a large
purpose-built sport complex constructed by the city government to host the sports and physical
activities offered in the programme.
1
There are ‘Vilas Olímpicas’ funded and administered by other institutions – e.g. state government and NGOs – in Rio
de Janeiro and other localities across the country as well. Our focus here is only on the Vilas Olímpicas Programme of
the Rio de Janeiro municipal government.
2
It is significant to note here that although the programme and the facilities are called ‘Vilas Olímpicas’, this by no
means refers to the Olympic Games Olympic Villages where athletes are hosted, nor, more specifically, to the Rio 2016
Olympic Games. This project has a history dating back to the late 1990s when the first Vila Olímpica was inaugurated
in Complexo da Maré, one of the biggest favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Its name, however, is obviously linked to the
Olympic Movement and the Olympic ideals, with a focus on increasing sport opportunities and participation in lowincome communities. Other governments around the country have used the name to designate similar projects.
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The population targeted by Vilas Olímpicas is children and adolescents, but activities are also
offered to adults. The size, number of individuals participating in activities and facilities available
vary, but the overarching aim of the programme is common to all 10 Vilas Olímpicas in the city;
that is, to provide free opportunities for sport and leisure in low-income communities. Actively
participating residents — i.e. those who are enrolled in formal activities — in one Vila Olímpica
only can sum up to 3,500 individuals, with the Vilas Olímpicas spaces being informally used by up
to 8,000 local residents.
Even though facilities vary between Vilas, most of them comprise a multi-sport covered
gymnasium, where activities such as basketball, volleyball and handball can be practiced, a multisport uncovered court, a football field, one or more swimming pools, multi-purpose rooms where
activities such as dance classes and martial arts are performed, an athletics track, a canteen,
changing rooms, and other amenities. The physical condition of these facilities also vary
significantly from one Vila to the next, some being well conserved while others have been
vandalised or left with little to no maintenance.
Activities are usually provided four days a week, from 7am to 5pm, and are free of charge to all,
although anyone interested must enrol and wait to be placed in the appropriate class if vacancies
allow. The facilities are also open during the weekends, although this is ‘free play’ time, with no
formal activities or supervision taking place during weekends. This is when working adults and
families mostly use the facilities as a leisure ground, as during the week the focus lies mostly on
children and youth. Some of the commonly offered activities are athletics, football, dance, martial
arts, capoeira, volleyball, swimming, aqua gym for adults and the elderly, and fitness classes,
among others. They are all run by physical education professionals, frequently with the help of
trainees, particularly when class sizes are high. All Vilas have a general manager who oversees the
daily administration of activities and personnel, as well as a sports coordinator, who develops the
physical activity and sports programme, working closely with coaches/instructors to better meet
the local population’s demands. Other professionals commonly employed by the Vilas Olímpicas
are social service specialists, educators and counsellors. Although all Vilas Olímpicas are under the
administration of the Municipal Department of Sport and Leisure (SMEL), each Vila Olímpica is
locally managed and therefore has a distinct approach to the provision of sports and physical
activity opportunities for the local population.
Another characteristic of the Vilas Olímpicas programme is that each local coordination group —
commonly made up of, at least, the general manager and the sports coordinator — can operate
under different arrangements, securing partnerships or even sponsorships with external
institutions not linked with the public sector. As we will discuss in more detail below, the Vilas
Olímpicas included in this study varied considerably in terms of their administration and funding
arrangements, as well as their general approach to sport and physical activity provision to the local
population.
Each of the four Vilas Olímpicas included in this study are described in detail in the results section.
Cidade de Deus
As indicated above, we decided to include a new phase of data collection to the project in order to
better assess the general provision of sport and physical activity opportunities for vulnerable
communities of Rio de Janeiro.
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The Vila Olímpica Professor Manoel José Gomes Tubino (VOPMJGT) is situated closest to where
most of the competitions of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games are scheduled to be staged. Cidade
de Deus is an extremely vulnerable community situated on the fringes of this Vila Olímpica and of
the proposed 2016 Olympic Park. Cidade de Deus has expanded significantly in the past 30 years
and now has one of the highest population densities in the city. With a population of around
47,000 inhabitants (Instituto Pereira Passos, 2012), Cidade de Deus presents social indicators
among the most critical of Rio de Janeiro, although located in the vicinity of some of the city’s
most affluent suburbs, such as Barra da Tijuca, Recreio and Freguesia. Many children who take
part in the activities promoted by VOPMJGT come from Cidade de Deus and therefore it seemed
like a logical choice to visit and learn more about public opportunities for sport and physical
activity available in this low-income community.
Cidade de Deus is located in the western region of the city of Rio de Janeiro and is an independent
part of the borough of Jacarepaguá. It was built in 1960 as part of a government programme of
favela clearance in the coastal areas of the city; favela residents were forcibly removed from their
shanty towns to Cidade de Deus, where social housing was to be provided. However, most of the
houses were not yet completed when families arrived and housing conditions in Cidade de Deus
remained as poor as their counterparts in the coastal zone. One of the reasons for this was the
occurrence of one of the biggest storms faced by the city in January 1966, which resulted in
massive floods and thousands of homeless people, forcing the government to ‘open’ Cidade de
Deus to receive part of the affected population before it was ready to do so. The measure was
temporary, but ended up being permanent. Invasions occurred over time and illegal constructions
were built next to planned houses (Cardoso, Ávila, Ferreira, & Pereira, 2009; Portal Comunitário
Cidade de Deus, 2012). Since then, Cidade de Deus has expanded wildly.
In 2002 the success of the Oscar-nominated film ‘City of God’ placed the community intensely in
the media, nationally and internationally, reinforcing the stigma of a dangerous and violent area
and encouraging a wave of prejudice and discrimination (Portal Comunitário Cidade de Deus,
2012). On the other hand, due to this exposure, the community has also frequently received
‘special attention’ from the government and other funding institutions, such as international
NGOs, who like to use the visibility of Cidade de Deus within middle- and upper-class groups in
Brazil and within the international media to showcase and promote specific actions.
More significantly for the purposes of this study, Cidade de Deus is in close proximity to the 2016
Olympic Park, which will be host to the Olympic Village, Media Village and most of the
competitions of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. It is therefore a community that will likely
be impacted significantly, positively or negatively, by the hosting of the event.
Data Collection
Focus Groups
It was initially suggested that focus groups should be conducted in four different Vilas Olímpicas.
As a matter of precaution, we contacted five of them. However, unfortunately, one of the Vilas
Olímpicas contacted proved to be an unsafe environment to conduct research at that stage, due
to armed conflict between the police and local drug dealers. The following four Vilas Olímpicas
were then included in the project: 1) Vila Olímpica da Maré, 2) Vila Olímpica da Gamboa, 3) Vila
Olímpica Clara Nunes, and 4) Vila Olímpica Professor Manoel José Gomes Tubino.
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Initial visits were made to all four Vilas Olímpicas to gather information about their administration,
their approach to sport education and social inclusion, their curriculum, the community in which
they are situated, and to meet and know more about their staff and participants. In these initial
visits, our project was fully explained to all those involved in the management of the Vila Olímpica,
and a process was put in place to start recruiting participants and to organise the focus groups.
Vilas Olímpicas coordinators worked closely with the researchers to identify potential participants
for the focus groups. Parents/legal carers of Vilas Olímpicas participants were contacted by the
Vilas Olímpicas coordination and invited to participate. Vouchers as a token gift were offered to all
participants, but Vila Olímpica coordinators did not find this approach appropriate due to the
recurrent problems of bribing experienced in the country to which they did not want to relate. We
therefore decided to provide, in addition to a nice lunch/afternoon tea after the focus groups, a
beautiful basket of goods for all participants as a thank you gift.
It was determined, in conversation with Vilas Olímpicas staff, that 10 parents/care takers would be
a realistic number of participants to recruit for each focus group. In Brazil, particularly in lowincome communities, engagement with research is low and unusual, and therefore we were
conservative in our expectations of adherence of this population with our study. Also, research on
focus groups has recommended that a minimum of four and a maximum of 12 participants be
included in every one session (Tong, Sainsbury, & Craig, 2007) to avoid silent voices and confusion,
but still provide enough quorum to entice useful and productive discussions.
Participants received an information sheet noting that preliminary results could be provided upon
request at any time after three months of commencement of research. Contact could be made
directly via email or through the Vila Olímpica coordinators, who would receive the final results as
soon as they were available and translated into Portuguese. The Vila Olímpica coordinators also
had researchers’ contact details and were free to contact us at any time if requested by any
participant. The researchers emphasised before commencement of the focus groups that results
would be available at the Vilas Olímpicas and could also be requested via email at any time. If they
wished to speak directly to one of the researchers via telephone, they were advised to contact the
local research assistant who was able to contact the two researchers living overseas so they could
return the participant’s call. No contact has been made so far.
A semi-structured interview schedule was prepared prior to the actual focus group meetings. This
technique is based on open questions that allow researchers to provide context for understanding
the participants’ perspectives (Minayo, 1996). Questions were grouped in four main themes: 1)
demographics (which were individually collected prior to the start of the focus group itself), 2) the
Vila Olímpica in the lives of your children and yourself, 3) Olympic legacies, and 4) Olympic legacies
in your community and Vila Olímpica.
We had 10 parents in each of the four Vilas Olímpicas attend a focus group. The focus groups
ranged in time from 45 to 90 minutes and were all audio recorded for later transcription. The
profile of participants was extremely varied (see Table 1 for details), which provided richness to
the discussions.
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Table 1: List of focus groups participants
Location
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOM
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOG
VOCN
VOCN
VOCN
VOCN
VOCN
VOCN
Gender
M
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
M
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
M
F
F
F
F
F
F
Age
62
33
43
39
42
48
48
53
19
47
58
63
27
60
33
49
40
50
40
34
48
36
39
57
39
42
Education
Primary
Secondary
Secondary incomplete
Tertiary
Primary
Primary incomplete
Primary
Primary incomplete
Secondary incomplete
Secondary
Secondary
Primary incomplete
Tertiary incomplete
Secondary
Trade certificate
Primary incomplete
Primary
Secondary
Secondary
Secondary
Tertiary
Secondary
Primary incomplete
Secondary incomplete
Secondary
Secondary
Occupation
retired
retailer
housewife
retailer
maid
housewife
housewife
retailer
student
maid
maid
maid
unemployed
street vendor
secretary
cleaner
small business owner
unemployed
kitchen hand
retailer
housewife
housewife
housewife
retired
dancer
housewife
VOCN
VOCN
VOCN
VOCN
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
VOPMJGT
F
M
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
39
25
40
35
46
49
44
57
37
31
36
59
59
Secondary incomplete
Secondary
Primary
Primary incomplete
Secondary
unknown
Primary incomplete
Tertiary incomplete
Secondary
Secondary
Secondary
Secondary incomplete
Secondary incomplete
housewife
student
housewife
housewife
maid
clerk
housewife
manicurist
housewife
maid
housewife
housewife
housewife
retired
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Relationship with user
grandfather
mother
mother and user
mother
mother
mother
grandmother
grandmother
user
mother and user
grandmother
user
mother
grandmother
mother
mother
mother
grandmother and user
mother
father
mother and user
user
user
grandmother
user
grandmother, mother,
aunt and user
mother and user
user
aunt
mother
mother
mother
mother
mother
grandmother
mother
mother
mother
grandmother
grandmother
RIO 2016 AND SPORT LEGACIES
Other Primary Data — Observations
Several visits to Cidade de Deus were conducted between April and July 2012. The researchers,
accompanied by a local leader who is also a football instructor who works through an NGO with
local children, visited all public areas and sport facilities located within the community. These
spaces were identified by the local resident, who discussed at length the issues experienced by the
community in accessing government-funded sport and leisure projects. Several visits were also
conducted to one local public school and to the local public health care unit. During these visits,
the researchers had the opportunity to meet and talk with several local residents: from local sport
instructors, several of them somehow involved — past or present — with government sport
programmes; to local school teachers; youth; elders; and other members of the communities.
Visits were also conducted to the city council’s local managing department, the Região
Administrativa da Cidade de Deus (Cidade de Deus Administrative Region), where the researchers
could collect information about: leisure spaces and sport facilities managed by the local
government and available to this community, the refurbishment of some sport facilities, and
sport/physical activity programmes available to residents of Cidade de Deus.
At the latter stages of data collection, official information about sport and physical activities
projects/programmes developed in the community were compared to those gathered through our
observations and conversations with local leaders and residents and helped inform our findings
and discussions below.
Secondary Data
The strategic sport and physical activity documents listed below were gathered from the following
institutions: a) OSC — Olympic Charter, Olympic Movement’s Agenda 21, previous manuals for
candidate cities, post-event reports from Organising Committees, previous bid books submitted by
Rio de Janeiro to host the Olympic Games, IOC’s Executive Board minutes, the Technical Manual
on the Olympic Games Impact Study, among others; b) Brazilian Olympic Committee — ‘Bid Book’
of Rio 2016, sport policy programme and statutes; c) Brazilian Ministry of Sports, Rio de Janeiro
State Sports Department and Rio de Janeiro City Council Sports Department — sport policy
programmes and other relevant documents. These documents were accessed online, at the
Brazilian Olympic Committee library in Rio de Janeiro, and at the Olympic Studies Centre in
Lausanne.
Accessing documents from Brazilian Government institutions, particularly from the local, state and
federal government’s departments for sport and leisure, was certainly the most difficult part of
the project, although they are intended to be of public open access. The major problem lies in
identifying where these documents are located within the institutions as there is a great amount
of bureaucracy involved in the archival of and access to public documents. Contact with these
institutions was made in person, via telephone and via email, and responses were, in most cases,
vague at best.
Data Analysis
In common with the majority of focus group-based research, all focus groups were digitally audiorecorded (Puchta & Potter, 2004) with the permission of each participant involved in the focus
groups. This process enabled the collection of an accurate and unbiased record of the focus
groups, allowed for the use of direct quotes in the interpretation of the qualitative material, and
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permitted the researchers to focus on the participants rather than on writing down each of the
subjects’ responses. In addition, the researchers wrote notes during and immediately after each
focus group describing the setting of each focus group, the relationship between the subjects, and
the researcher’s feelings about what was done, said, and not said during each focus group. The
notes were a valuable source of information for generating a better understanding of the
respondents in terms of the issues discussed during the focus groups. As all focus groups were
conducted in Portuguese, data analysis was also conducted in this language; only later were
quotes translated to be included in this report.
During interpretation of the empirical material the emphasis was on understanding ‘the world of
lived experiences from the point of view of those who live it’ (Locke, 2001, p. 8). Therefore, the
material collected was transcribed and analysed using an interpretative approach (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005) providing an all-inclusive analysis of the different views espoused by respondents.
The first phase of the analysis included both authors listening to the recordings separately while
reading the focus group transcript. This phase intended to give the researchers a general feel of
the interview context, providing both researchers with a similar background as to the ‘mood’ of
the interview, each participant’s ‘personality’ and general approach to the theme. In the next
stage, transcripts were thoroughly read by both authors and also annotated in order to identify
main themes emerging from the data (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005).
The software for qualitative data analysis NVivo 10 was used as a data management programme
to assist in the organisation of the material and in the further identification of themes. The
material was first organised into nodes using the themes identified by the authors. Themes
identified by both researchers were then contrasted and compared, and differences in
interpretation were discussed together with a re-read of the interview material. The emergent
themes were then further discussed by both researchers for a process of re-defining and regrouping until a consensus was reached. Phrases and rich quotations that strongly encapsulated
the themes identified were selected by the researchers and are used here in order to enrich the
discussion of the results encountered in this study.
Multiple data sources and perspectives, coming from individuals with diverse cultural and social
backgrounds, living in different neighbourhoods of the city, as well as from all the supporting
documents raised throughout the study provided a comprehensive view of the phenomenon being
investigated and helped ensure data trustworthiness and credibility.
An analysis of official documents was concomitantly employed in order to deepen the
understanding of how discourses about sport, recreation and leisure legacies of Rio 2016 are
anchored in official papers. These official documents were analysed in light of the relevant
international literature on sport mega-events’ legacies. By analysing these documents we have
been able to achieve a clearer picture of the efforts being made by the public and private
institutions involved with Rio 2016 to promote sports participation and assess if these efforts are
indeed reaching the communities who are, or should be, their main targets.
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Due to the variety of data collection methods and material gathered, we have chosen to present
the results and discussions under the main section but in separate sub-sections to facilitate
understanding. The first sub-section presents a detailed description of the context found in each
of the four Vilas Olímpicas visited and included in this study. The second sub-section presents the
findings from the focus group conducted in the four Vilas Olímpicas and how the main emergent
themes from this exercise fit the current knowledge in the field. The third sub-section presents
again only a description of government-funded sport programmes available for children and youth
of Cidade de Deus, with a full discussion of issues found in these programmes presented in the
following sub-section. Results and discussions are then merged to reach the conclusions presented
in the final part of this report.
The Vilas Olímpicas and their Context
As described previously, the four Vilas Olímpicas included in this study presented considerable
differences between one another, not only in regards to the communities in which they are
located but also concerning their administration and daily operations. This differentiated context,
however, did not seem to diminish the commonalities between the views of participants in all
Vilas Olímpicas, as our results indicate. This congruence notwithstanding, we feel it is important to
present separately the context within which each Vila Olímpica is situated in order to support our
argument that there are indeed overarching issues that are present in all Vilas Olímpicas, as well
as in other government sport programmes, as presented in the next section.
Vila Olímpica da Maré
The first Vila Olímpica established in the city of Rio de Janeiro by the municipal government was
the Vila Olímpica da Maré (VOM). It was born out of a community demand for a sport and leisure
facility servicing the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro — in 2010 it sheltered almost 130,000 people
(IBGE, 2011). In addition the favela presents the fourth lowest Human Development Index (HDI) in
the municipality (IBGE, 2011), with high levels of criminality and violence.
In 1999, although not completely finished, VOM was inaugurated and its operations began.
According to staff, the Vila was a legacy of the Rio de Janeiro candidature for the 2004 Olympic
Games, as this was used, both by the community and local government, to secure funding and
interest in establishing such a project. The administration of this Vila Olímpica has always been
shared between the municipal government and the local community association that fought for its
establishment (UNIMAR). However, in 1999, after its official opening, UNIMAR sought to institute
a partnership with the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (COPPE-UFRJ), located on the fringes of
the Vila Olímpica. The aim was to expand the reach of VOM to areas beyond sport practice, to
include other educational and social activities. This partnership is solid to this day and, in fact, it
has achieved the broader aim of encompassing educational, cultural, health and entrepreneurial
activities in their daily operations. Today VOM offers music, dance, sport and theatre classes as
well as health and nutrition services and workshops in maths and language, to name only a few.
The current administration of VOM is therefore also shared with COPPE-UFRJ.
In addition to the partnership with the university, VOM has been able to secure also a long-term
sponsor: Petrobras, the largest oil company in Brazil. Through this sponsorship deal, costs are
somewhat shared between Petrobras and the local government, therefore expanding considerably
the scope and reach of VOM into the community. According to staff, the sponsors provide funding
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for salaries and costs associated with personnel, whereas the local government is solely
responsible for maintenance costs.
Facilities, however, are still far from ideal. When we visited VOM one of the swimming pools was
closed for repairs and had been for some time. Although well looked after by staff, several
structures were clearly old and damaged, with no repair in sight. Staff mentioned, on several
occasions, that infrastructural maintenance was a significant issue in their operations. As this cost
is the responsibility of the local government it indicates a lack of investment in existing
infrastructure that is indeed operating towards the goal of increasing sport and physical activity
participation among the population.
Physical space, however, is not the problem. VOM is certainly the largest of all Vilas Olímpicas
visited, covering an area of 80,000m2. Nevertheless, the area effectively prepared for use is but a
fraction of the total area available. This can be a reflection of the ‘inauguration’ of VOM before its
entire plan had been delivered. As we will discuss later in this report, such strategies are common
within the Brazilian political context, with big inaugurations often taking place before elections,
even if the infrastructure is not ready for use.
The other problem associated with VOM’s empty or unused spaces is crime and violence. The area
covered by VOM crosses regions within the favela that ‘belong’ to different crime factions.
Although staff have a strategy to ensure that most of its area is used for activities throughout the
day, sometimes this is just not feasible due particularly to the harsh weather conditions. Even if
activities were promoted in these spaces, enrolments would be poor as conditions offered would
not be pleasant for the participants. The consequence of this is that certain areas in VOM can be
used for illegal behaviour which can lead to problems of security within VOM’s premises. In
addition, it can be dangerous also for individuals living in one end of VOM to utilise spaces in the
other end of the Vila due to the armed conflict between different crime factions.
Even though staff did talk about these issues, they assured the researchers that it was uncommon
for violence to unfold within VOM’s premises. Their supposition is that the community values and
respects the space and the professionals who work hard to provide something good to the
community. This was certainly perceived by the researchers when conducting the focus group in
this Vila Olímpica. Nevertheless, violence is a serious issue within the community and VOM is not
exempt; children and youth are particularly susceptible.
Vila Olímpica da Gamboa
Gamboa is a central region of Rio de Janeiro, near the central bus station, the port and the main
business district area. It is home to more than 13,000 individuals and presents a very low HDI:
rating 97 out of the 126 districts of Rio de Janeiro (IBGE, 2011). The community has been changing
however. As part of the Olympic infrastructural legacies, the harbour side is being completely
refurbished and changes have already been felt by residents, even though not necessarily for the
better. ‘Porto Maravilha’ (Wonderful Port), as it is called, is a large programme of urban renewal
taking place in and around Gamboa, financed by the three levels of government, working in
cooperation with private enterprises to ‘transform’ the derelict region into an area for middleclass work and entertainment. Gentrification is a consequence raised by local residents as being
imminent as we discuss later in this report.
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The Vila Olímpica da Gamboa (VOG) is centrally located in this neighbourhood and the impacts of
massive investments and infrastructural reform can be seen at any time of the day, with
construction workers in sight everywhere one goes. Interestingly, however, is that the Vila
Olímpica did not seem impacted, physically, by these changes. In fact, VOG was the Vila Olímpica
in this study presenting the worst physical conditions of all. One of the main swimming pools was
out of order at the time of our visits and changing rooms, classrooms and other physical structures
were all clearly deteriorating, lacking maintenance and in dire need for repair. It was also where
we saw the least number of participants. But this situation has other issues interfering; VOG has
only recently changed its main administrator. The previous one, from conversations with current
staff, did not endeavour to work closely with the community, soon losing their respect. Without
support from the local community, the administration was not able to promote VOG’s activities
and attract the public to participate. Apparently, political issues were very prevalent during the
previous administration, which caused high levels of dissatisfaction among participants and staff,
service quality dropping as a result. The new administration seems to be very motivated to attract
the community back to this space for their own leisure and pleasure. However, this is a mediumto long-term ideal and only time will tell if they will succeed or not.
Similarly to VOM, VOG was also inaugurated before fully completed. An area initially thought to be
included in VOG has now passed on to the Porto Maravilha project and, according to information
provided by local residents, will be used for the construction of a new arts centre. Although there
are clear signs of renovation everywhere, including almost inside the Vila Olímpica itself, the
rotten equipment and facilities of VOG remain with no significant investment.
It is worth noting that this Vila has not been able, so far, to establish any partnership or
sponsorship agreement, such as the one VOM has succeeded in establishing. Possibly now, with
the large investments being made in the area, this situation might change, but the current reality
is one of very sparse financial investment. The physical structure and lack of participants are
clearly a reflection of this situation.
Vila Olímpica Clara Nunes
Although all Vilas Olímpicas are situated in areas of low socio-economic standing, the Vila Olímpica
Clara Nunes (VOCN), located in the Acari community, is certainly the one that presents the worst
indicators. There are only two other communities in the entire Rio de Janeiro metropolis that
present lower HDIs than Acari (Amorim & Blanco, 2003), and violence and criminality are, as a
consequence, extremely high, presenting some of the worst ratings in Rio de Janeiro: 60-91
homicides per 100,000 inhabitants per year (Cezar and Cavallieri, 2002). In fact, during one of our
visits to VOCN the facilities were closed and no activities were being undertaken due to armed
conflict between the police and the drug dealers. When we first arrived by train at the community
we sensed the place was ‘under siege’ as one could hardly see anyone on the streets. The closure
of VOCN for these reasons is not uncommon.
Similarly to VOM, VOCN has been able to establish a long-term partnership with a university, this
time a private university, Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC-Rio). PUC-Rio also provides
financial support to VOCN’s operations, but like Petrobras with VOM, it only covers costs
associated with staff salaries. The partnership is made directly with the School of Social Service,
which in practice translates into a very socially-oriented approach to all activities in the Vila.
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Staff at VOCN indicated that the partnership with PUC-Rio is of fundamental importance to ensure
that the Vila Olímpica maintains its focus on social inclusion through sports and leisure, and
remains uninvolved in local political disputes. The local population really embraces VOCN and
supports its activities. Although we did experience days of no activities due to issues of security in
the community, we were able to witness times where several children, youth and adults were
actively participating. Staff are also pro-active in creating opportunities for the wider community
to use the VOCN space, particularly during weekends where no formal classes are taking place;
activities such as public weddings and cultural festivals, among others, are frequently organised by
staff to include the whole community in the project.
More than in any other Vila Olímpica visited, VOCN’s focus is on children and youth. Although
several activities are offered for adults and the elderly, these have been accommodated in such a
way as to not undermine access to children’s and youth’ activities. VOCN works in direct
collaboration with the public school located just beside the Vila Olímpica in order to promote
sport and leisure activities for children and youth before/after school hours. Staff fully recognise
the educational value of sport and leisure, and can see the benefits participating children and
youth accrue from these activities. Activities offered range from swimming lessons, to badminton,
judo and ballet.
As with the other two Vilas Olímpicas described above, the infrastructure is good but severely in
need of maintenance. For example, the only good-sized classroom for dance and fitness activities
is full of leaks and does not have basic equipment such as bars or mirrors. Again, maintenance
costs are the responsibility of the government and, again, we witnessed an acute lack of
investment in this area.
Vila Olímpica Professor Manoel José Gomes Tubino
The last Vila Olímpica to be inaugurated among the Vilas visited was VOPMJGT3, located in the
community of Mato Alto, neighbouring Cidade de Deus. With only two years of operation, facilities
are in immaculate condition. Although the number of participants is still rising as the community
becomes aware of the opportunities offered, VOPMJGT was busy during all our visits. According to
staff, most classes are full, although they have not reached maximum capacity as yet.
This Vila Olímpica, however, presents a distinct profile from the other three. VOPMJGT was
conceived to be a sports training centre, with a particular focus on handball, athletics, taekwondo
and karate. The establishment of this Vila Olímpica in particular is attributed to the bidding for and
staging of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and the focus on competitive sports may be a
direct consequence of this, as discussed in previous sections. Although several other activities are
offered for the local population, including swimming and dance classes, the main focus of this Vila
is to detect potential sport talents and develop them in a competitive environment. Most, if not
all, sport activities offered in VOPMJGT have squad training, confirming the competitive focus. In
conversation with staff, it also became clear that the pedagogical approach of VOPMJGT places
high performance sport as the ultimate aim in the educational process in which sport is used as
the main tool.
3
Another Vila Olímpica has been recently established – after this study’s field work, in August 2012 – in Pedra de
Guaratiba, a neighbourhood in the west end of Rio de Janeiro.
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An interesting approach, and unique to this Vila Olímpica, is the recruitment of participants from
other communities, including middle-class youth, to form part of the competitive teams of the
Vila. Although taking notice of the talents within the Vila’s neighbouring communities, athletes
from across the city come to train at VOPMJGT. Conversations with staff reinforced the
competitive nature of activities offered and highlighted the involvement of participating children
and youth in local, regional and national sport competitions.
Infrastructural problems are, however, still present. The facility was built to promote and develop
high performance sports but the indoor gymnasium cannot host first class volleyball competitions
and training for instance, because it is not high enough; the athletics track has a similar problem,
not being able to host competitions because it does not comply with official regulations. As some
staff indicated, even when facilities are built by the government with the specific aim of
developing high performance sports, basic infrastructural problems are present. In fact, there are
plans for the establishment of a biomechanics laboratory, in partnership with the Rio de Janeiro
State University, to help improve the performance of VOPMJGT athletes, but staff are searching
for private sponsors to fund the equipment as these would not be fully subsidised by the
government.
Vilas Olímpicas and the Sport Participation Legacy
Despite the considerable contextual differences between the Vilas Olímpicas included in this
study, there were significant similarities in the responses provided by members of all different
communities. It is upon the parallels that we will focus our attention, as they provide important
insights into the impacts that sport, and the Vilas Olímpicas more specifically, have on their lives as
well as their expectations of the 2016 Olympic Games.
Vilas Olímpicas are Good for Your Health!
For most participants, the main reason for attending or taking their children to participate in
activities offered by the Vilas Olímpicas was health. Sport was unanimously associated with health
and healthy lifestyles, and our study participants actively sought out alternatives to improve their
health condition. Cases of obesity, health issues around aging, hyperactivity in children and
respiratory diseases were all mentioned to have triggered their involvement with the Vila
Olímpica:
The sport I practice today is for my future, because I want to age healthy, and the way I was
going I wasn’t going to be able to achieve this. So this is the role the Vila plays in my life. (VOCN
participant)
[... my son] does swimming here at the Vila. I’ve always wanted to get him to do some physical
activity, because he has bronchitis, rhinitis … a lot of ‘itis’ that he’s got. (VOG participant)
It is significant that a notable number of participants were directed to the Vilas by health
practitioners, particularly medical doctors:
Because she had a back problem, then the doctor examined her and asked that she start
swimming classes. (VOPMJGT participant)
I brought him to the Vila because the doctor said he was getting hyperactive, so he should be
doing some activity. Because he’s all by himself [no siblings], there’s not much space in the
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house, it’s too small. So the doctor said he should do swimming coz he’s very allergic, and has
sickle cell anaemia. (VOG participant)
This result confirms that intervention is needed frequently to raise awareness of the benefits of
physical activity and sports to an individual’s health (King, 1998). Such a premise reinforces the
need for policies to be consistent and recurrent if they are to achieve the aim of increasing the
general population’s participation in sport and physical activity (Stahl, Rütten, Nutbeam, & Kannas,
2002). Moreover, it supports the proposition that in order to increase levels of participation
among children and youth, parents also need to be targeted, particularly to increase awareness
and education of the benefits of sport participation for health. Although the statement that any
sport participation will provide health benefits for the population is contentious, it is clear that
well-supervised and monitored activities, such as most of those occurring in the Vilas Olímpicas,
can improve health indicators (Bergeron, 2007). Policies in this direction, taking the Olympic
Games as an opportunity or not, are therefore paramount.
Another significant issue raised frequently in the focus groups was the benefit of sport
participation for mental health. This was particularly the case for adult participants, but also
mentioned when related to children and youth in relation to the benefits of being in a social
environment away from the loneliness and mindlessness of watching TV and playing videogames:
So they don’t stay inside the house, watching TV, DVDs, or sitting on the sofa, it’s better to go
out and do something, right? […] Even today, there are no classes, but we come anyway!
(VOCN participant)
I started here because I stopped working and was getting depressed […] I was going crazy,
gaining weight, and then I thought that sport would be something good to try, although I never
liked practicing anything […] So I came here for an activity, aerobics, and I said ‘well, let’s try
it!’, and it did wonders for me psychologically. I made new friends, and felt really good doing
that […] So I then brought my daughter with me. (VOCN participant)
Screen-based leisure has been identified as a major source of leisure for contemporary children
and youth but also as a major hurdle to be overcome if active recreation participation is to
increase (cf. Fotheringham, Wonnacott, & Owen, 2000; Pergams & Zaradic, 2006). In this sense, it
is again noteworthy that once the parents experience or are aware of the benefits of sport
participation then their children will be encouraged to take part as well. Such a finding has been
described by previous research that suggests that active parents are more likely to raise active
children (Lindsay, Sussner, Kim, & Gortmaker, 2006). Therefore, strategies to increase sport
participation among children and youth should consider somehow reaching parents as well.
The acute acknowledgement of the need for such programmes to be available for the population
and the significance of leisure time in the lives of individuals was less clear among our study
participants. Although most were indeed motivated to participate for health reasons, it took some
discussion for participants to realise their constitutional right to leisure and sports. In a society
where work is the most valued social activity, particularly in low-income communities where living
conditions are harsh, leisure is poorly recognised as a necessity for all (Roberts, 1995):
I have two sons, but they are older now […] they work and don’t have time for these things.
Well, I mean, it’s not a luxury. It’s a sport, a leisure activity, sport is everything eh? So I’ve been
very happy here. (VOG participant, emphasis added)
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However, when the health aspect of sport and physical activity was constantly being mentioned by
focus group participants, some started to realise, or better express, the importance of public
investments in this area to reduce pressure on an already chaotic health system:
Because it is something indispensable in our lives, to have our bodies in movement, because it
is good for our health. And health is really precarious here! In Brazil! So if you have something
that can improve health then I think they should invest more in it. (VOCN participant)
Indeed, issues of a lack of investment and maintenance of the Vilas Olímpicas’ facilities were a
strong theme among all focus groups and one to which we will turn our attention next. Before we
do, however, another ‘health’ theme needs to be discussed here; the high importance given by
participants to the role sport can play in keeping children and youth away from drugs and crime.
Several studies have been conducted in this field in Brazil and the dominant rhetoric of the power
of sport in developing ‘better’ citizens has been scrutinised by researchers from different fields of
study (Correia, 2008; Mello & Tavares, 2006; Melo, 2005a). Despite the scientific lack of evidence
for such a claim, it is generally assumed that sport can indeed have a positive impact on the lives
of children and youth, ultimately preventing them from joining crime factions or consuming illegal
drugs (Kenyon & Rockwood, 2010). Our results point in the same direction, with parents and youth
in focus groups claiming that sport can play such a role in the lives of their children and therefore
should be encouraged, particularly where high levels of criminality are found:
For me? [The benefit] is to be out of the streets. Not being in the streets getting involved with
who I shouldn’t be. Even though I am, well, 25, I could be where a lot of young guys are at my
age. So I am where I can have a better future, for sure. Because next year I will go to college,
choosing an area that I love, Physical Education. So I think I’m on the right track. No, I don’t just
think I am, I know for sure I am on the right track! (VOCN participant)
We see a lot of kids here, and these kids need ‘sportivity’, let’s put it that way. So if the parents
were mobilised to bring their children, their grandkids, to practice sport, it would be wonderful
to avoid that these kids are idle, doing a lot of things [that they shouldn’t], you know? (VOM
participant)
It is clear that the environments in which all the Vilas Olímpicas are immersed are extremely prone
to involvement in criminal activities, particularly those related to drug consumption and
trafficking. It is therefore expected that this discourse is even more powerful in these locations,
where any hope for ‘better futures’, such as mentioned by the VOCN participant above, is highly
attractive. As Melo has argued based on research conducted on the Vila Olímpica da Maré:
We can clearly notice the stance that youth get involved with criminality because they do not
have other things to do, suggesting a linearity between lack of leisure opportunities with
involvement with crime, apart from establishing some sort of causal relationship between the
two. In this way, sport and leisure would be the ‘perfect antidotes’ to prevent such practices, a
sort of social analgesic, always under a conservative perspective of social control. (2005a, p. 96
[translated by the authors])
In his study, Melo (2005a, 2007) also found that such a ‘redemptive’ discourse was present in the
Vila Olímpica focus of his study and critically argued that these tend to only mask structural
problems of that given society, a position to which we fully agree. Several authors have
extensively discussed the problematic idea of ‘sport for development’, as if sport could cure all
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social ills (Coalter, 2010; Cornelissen, 2011; Girginov & Hills, 2009) — a premise that we do not
espouse. However, we argue that social programmes that are well formulated, managed and
promoted can indeed bring positive effects to the participating population and, therefore, the
hope present in the participants’ narratives is not to be disregarded as purely naive. Although we
do espouse the critical position that, for instance, criminality problems are structural and that
actions to deter them that do not attend to the roots of the problem are but palliative strategies
(Stephen, 2009), we also acknowledge that broader policies focusing on social regeneration and
health, such as the ones related to sport and physical activity participation, can impact individual
lives and should not be ignored. Again, this highlights the importance of regular and reliable
investments in programmes to benefit those who are most vulnerable in society. Children and
youth should be of particular focus.
Lack of Investment and Maintenance
Another recurrent theme in the focus groups was the lack of investment in sport programmes by
the government, and more specifically in the Vilas Olímpicas themselves. As explained in the
descriptions of the Vilas Olímpicas above, all Vilas Olímpicas presented infrastructural issues and,
apart from the newly built VOPMJGT, were in dire need of maintenance and infrastructural repair.
Testimonials from the different focus groups highlight the problems:





The physical space is deteriorating. Look, here, it’s leaking!
There are rooms that don’t have lights!
What about the changing room/toilets?
The changing rooms/toilets don’t have lights!
There are no fans [in the classrooms], the window is falling apart. (VOCN participants)

I think that the swimming equipment here is the same since the Vila was inaugurated
(in 2004). […] I think that this place was abandoned after it was inaugurated […] I’ve
seen elderly people saying that they don’t have equipment for their hydro gym classes
[…] the instructors here work hard but are unsupported!
That’s true.
I’ve seen my son’s judo instructor teaching in a very small room, a cubicle, where the
kids had to put some little mats down because there was no judo mat! Look how long
this place has been here for! (VOG participants)


Even the participants in the new VOPMJGT raised the issue, stating that they ‘hope’ that the
government will not abandon the Vila after the 2016 Games are over or after the political parties
in power change:


[We hope] that they keep this project. Because it doesn’t make sense to do this just
because the Games are coming, right? […]
Invest in this place too. Put some cover on the outdoor courts, because during summer
no one can use them […] Invest! (VOPMJGT participants)
Here an issue was raised several times by participants: the commonplace ‘waste’ of public money
in facilities that are subsequently abandoned by the government; that is, money is invested to
build facilities but the annual budget allocation does not cover ongoing costs to the same degree,
particularly those related to infrastructural maintenance. To highlight this context, participants
frequently mentioned the experience with the 2007 Pan-American Games held in Rio. The event,
‘one of the major multi-sporting competitions in the Americas’ (Reis & DaCosta, 2011) following a
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similar format to the Olympic Games, is the closest example cariocas have of an ‘Olympic Gameslike’ major sport event being hosted by their community. Unfortunately, however, the
organisation of this event was surrounded by controversy and several studies have highlighted
how the organising committee failed to deliver most of their legacy promises (Benedicto, 2009;
Curi, 2009; Curi, Knijnik, & Mascarenhas, 2011; Mascarenhas & Borges, 2009), including physical
infrastructure for sports practice. Participants in our study frequently mentioned the ‘white
elephants’ (large sport facilities which are not being sufficiently used by the local population)
created by the Pan-American Games, which will not even be used for Rio 2016, as a point of
comparison:






I doubt [there will be improvements for the population]. Why? Because lots of the
buildings that were constructed for the Pan[American Games] are now abandoned.
Yeah, all just rotting there.
So, is the same going to happen with the new facilities they are gonna build? That’s
what I mean. We need maintenance [of facilities]. I mean, it’s a white elephant,
nobody uses it, it’s just there. (VOPMJGT participants)
[I was against the Olympics in Rio] because we won’t see any improvements. Did we
see any after the Pan[American Games]? And after the Olympics, are we gonna see
any?
The [aquatics centre] Maria Lenk is there, closed, breeding mosquitoes, dengue
mosquitoes […] [all activities are] finished there. The Pan[American Games] finished,
any interest [from the government] in the facilities also finished. I think it’s all politics.
They spent money in construction work, in building the stadium, they robbed a lot of
people’s money [meaning tax payer money] as well […] (VOCN participants)
A previous study conducted by this research team also found the same results with physical
education professionals in Rio de Janeiro, who also criticised the misuse of facilities built with
public funds but which are now either underutilised or have been privatised (Reis, Sousa-Mast, &
Gurgel, forthcoming). In addition, Reis and DaCosta point out that:
[...t]he consequence of creating elite sporting and entertainment spaces in countries where a
significant proportion of the population is poor is that this infrastructure will become either a
collection of white elephants, empty and underutilised (Mangan 2008), or they will quickly be
degraded to ‘fit’ the norm of the local society who will eventually need to pay for and make use
of the facilities. In fact, apart from one of the four big stadia constructed for the 2007 Rio de
Janeiro Pan American Games, all the others are currently being underutilised or have been
degraded. (2012, p. 71)
It is therefore an issue that needs to be addressed by Rio 2016 organisers.
When asked what they wished for in terms of a sport legacy from Rio 2016, participants were
unanimous to choose the continuation of the Vila Olímpica programme in their community, with
higher levels of investment in infrastructure and personnel:
Maintain all of this […] because it’s not just about the kids today, but the kids who will come
later, grow up here. Maintain this project, you know? Because it doesn’t work to do it all now
and then leave it. What good does it do? (VOPMJGT participant)
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For me, I wish they continue this [Vila Olímpica] project, because it doesn’t work for them to
get this now, invest here, and not take care of it […] not repair it. (VOM participant)
This response not only highlights the problems of investment but also stresses the value of the
Vilas Olímpicas for these communities. The programme is clearly well regarded by the
participating communities, who feel somewhat privileged to be able to enjoy it, given that these
are not available to a large portion of the population. For a population suffering from high levels of
social inequality and low quality levels in basic public services, to be able to even take part, for
free, in activities that are conducted by qualified staff, despite the objectionable physical
conditions of the facilities, is considered a privilege. In fact, some participants speculated that
these programmes are not better promoted by the government within the communities in which
they occur because they would not have the capacity to meet the demand that would be created:
But do you know why I think they don’t advertise? It’s because there’s not enough outflow.
There are too many people out there wanting ‘things’. There are a lot of lazy indolent people
out there, but most of the population here at Maré is made up of decent people, who fight
hard every day and want the best for their children. So the government can’t attend all of
these people, because in reality there’s a lot of embezzlement of public funds. So if they
advertise and promote these projects [such as the Vila Olímpica] they think: ‘if I’m going to
promote I’ll have to deliver, and in order to deliver I’ll need to invest money in it’. (VOM
participant)
In a city with more than one million people living in favelas (Observatório de Favelas, 2006), it is
unsurprising the feeling expressed by the participant above, particularly due to the long ‘culture’
of corruption in public institutions and politics in Brazil (Geddes & Ribeiro Neto, 1992; Habib &
Zurawicki, 2006). It is problematic, however, to think that sport programmes and policies to
promote sport participation can and/or will only reach a small fraction of the population. VOCN,
for instance, located in a community with more than 27,000 dwellers, has the capacity to attend to
a maximum of 4,610 individuals per month4. Although at the moment it does not reach full
capacity in some of the classes for various reasons, most activities offered are either full or
surpassing allocated number of participants5, demonstrating the demand and interest from the
local community. In VOM the number of active participants reaches only 3,500 people in a
community with almost 130,000 individuals. Although it is incontestable that 3,500 individuals is a
high number of people serviced by the programme, it nonetheless represents less than 3% of the
total population of Complexo da Maré.
Priorities
Although most participants were extremely positive about the experience of holding major events
such as the Olympic Games in the city, when probed to discuss the impacts of the events on their
lives, very few recognised the potential for increasing interest in sport and sport participation. As
mentioned above, there was certainly a hope for the continuation of the Vilas Olímpicas and for
more investment in sport programmes, but few participants associated the event with, or
expected the event to result in, improvements in this area. In fact, some participants did not really
understand what the Olympic Games were really about, apart from a vague idea that it was a large
sports competition. Others constantly referred to the 2014 FIFA World Cup as the event we were
4
Based on number of vacancies in all supervised activities offered.
Based on number of participants per instructor, as well as availability of equipment, and physical space in
rooms/courts/pools.
5
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discussing6, although we constantly made it clear that it was the Olympic Games that we were
referring to.
Brazilian anthropologist Roberto DaMatta (2003, p. 19) has previously argued that the ‘Olympic
Games do not generate much enthusiasm in Brazil’, as opposed to the football World Cup, which is
a Brazilian passion. If we accept this assumption, one which we would argue is partially true, it can
be speculated that within a context in which the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games are being
hosted in the same city only two years apart from each other, with the former being the first of
the two events to be hosted, the latter can be easily obscured and subsequently dismissed by the
general population. Although it is expected that this situation will change with the Games being
hosted in Brazil, the point made here is that the individuals we spoke to in these low-income
communities do not place the same high value on the Olympic Games per se, as they do on the
football World Cup, but they do place value on what it may represent for the city, particularly in
terms of infrastructural change that can be physically perceived as they walk in the city. The
association of the event with sport participation or general Olympic values is therefore not
immediate to these individuals. The quote below the VOG focus groups clearly illustrates this
argument:
From what I can see, what I perceive, people associate the hosting of ‘this Olympics’ with
construction work. They think that that’s why there is so much construction work in the
city, everything is under construction/repair. They don’t associate the hosting of the
Olympics with sport and as an incentive to sport practice, to value sport, give more value
to sport. Nobody sees it that way. They see it like that: ‘that’s why we’re having these
[infrastructural] works, so it’s pretty for the events, so it’s pretty when everyone arrives, all
the foreigners, so they think it’s all beautiful’[…] So there’s no promotion, that the
Olympics will value sports more. No, just the infrastructural work. (VOG participants)
So far, therefore, although our participants are actually part of a government-funded sport
programme that has the purported aim of promoting the Olympic ideals of education, health and
social inclusion through sport, they have not perceived much effort being directed to leverage the
hosting of the Olympic Games to promote Olympic values and ideals to the wider population. The
focus, again, seems to lie solely on infrastructural changes. These findings confirm Todt’s (2009)
argument that Olympic values have not played a significant role in any sport policy found in Brazil
so far. It reinforces also Knijnik and Tavares’s (2012) findings on the Segundo Tempo programme
(discussed below) that suggest that its instructors do not identify themselves as part of an Olympic
Education programme, although being officially described as such in the Rio 2016’s Legacy Plan, of
which it constitutes an integral part.
Furthermore, although study participants are quite happy with the ‘improvements’ being made to
the city, particularly in the transport system, there is a general perception that these investments
should be made regardless of the events and that the events only provide a means for the
government to accelerate processes that would normally take longer due to the democratic
procedures involved in such endeavours. It therefore creates an anti-democratic environment
where decisions are made as matters of urgency, skipping regular procedures where
accountability is regulated and monitored:

6
What the government wants is for us to believe in this ‘oh, what a good thing!’ […]
The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Brazil and Rio de Janeiro will be host to the grand finals.
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



I think it’s like a play.
They want to do these works because behind every construction work there’s much
more money than what is going to be left as legacy for the population.
Of course!
So what they want us to think is ‘Look, you rather have this than nothing, because if it’s
not now you’ll never get this’. (VOM participants)
It is significant to note here that other scholars have discussed this problem, which is commonly
associated with the staging of mega-events. For instance, Horne (2012, p. 5) states:
[...] sports mega-events have been largely developed by undemocratic organizations, often
with anarchic decision-making and a lack of transparency, and more often in the interests of
global flows of finance, technology and imagery, rather than local communities. In this respect
they represent a shift of public funds to private interests […]
It is therefore an issue that needs to be further discussed and evaluated by the transnational
organisations that are ultimately responsible for these sport mega-events.
Within this context, most of our study’s participants indicated that Rio de Janeiro has other more
pressing issues to be dealt with than preparing the city to host a sport event. Instead of large-scale
investments in constructing new sport facilities not long after the city went through a series of
construction works for the 2007 Pan-American Games, the focus should be on improving basic
services for the local population, such as the health and education systems as well as public
security:
So much public money is going to be spent, and a lot won’t be for what is really needed […]
There are a lot of things, the health system, for instance, is chaotic, because it is not in their
interest [to invest], so they use this money for the Olympics! (VOCN participant)
But they don’t invest in hospitals, don’t invest in schools, in transport […] they don’t care about
the local population. And then now just for the gringos to see! (VOM participant)
Although it is clear that most participants appreciate some of the changes that the events will
bring about in the city, it seems that for them, public money should be directed to fulfilling the
local population’s basic needs in health and education. Any legacy related to sport participation is
welcomed but not considered a priority.
This issue of diversion of public government effort to finance what can arguably be considered
superfluous infrastructure instead of basic service provision for the local population in most need,
has been extensively discussed in the literature (Matheson & Baade, 2003). Supporters of such
investments argue that the influx of capital into the city or country surpasses that of normal
conditions and therefore expedites work in areas that were in need and that would not receive
such funding in the short-term timeframe that mega-events make possible (see discussion by Hall,
2006). On the other hand, critics of this common stance contend that such capital inflow follows a
neoliberal logic that dispossess the ones who are in most need, such as the residents of the lowincome communities we visited, and instead of improving their living conditions it exacerbates the
gap between those who have access to high quality services and infrastructure and those who do
not (Pillay & Bass, 2008).
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Several of the participants in this study provided evidence that supports the latter claim. As
mentioned before, VOG is located on the fringes of one of the most significant urban renewal
projects being conducted in Rio de Janeiro under the banner of Olympic legacies. ‘Porto Maravilha’
will dramatically change the central region of the city, where Gamboa is located, with the
construction of middle-class apartment buildings, shopping centres and other amenities. The
impact of this urban renewal project has already started to be felt by local residents:






We haven’t seen anything yet. ‘Oh, the World Cup is coming, the Olympics, Porto
Maravilha is here’, but us, residents, we haven’t seen anything done to help our lives.
Rent, or if you want to buy a house, you can’t do it anymore here. It’s all so expensive
here now. Getting valorised but we haven’t seen any improvements yet.
We get flooded all the time!
Yeah, when it rains here it’s impossible to get anywhere because it gets all flooded […]
Yeah, it’s heaps of flooded water! My daughter saw something on the internet ‘Look
here, the neighbourhood that will be transformed into a middle-class neighbourhood’.
People put this on the internet because there was so much water and rubbish
everywhere.
And if it’s to get the neighbourhood better for the locals, then the Vila Olímpica should
get better as well, I mean the facilities, the equipment […]
And the quality of living in Rio, with the World Cup, and after the Olympics, it will get
more expensive, because today the works have not been completed yet and we are
already noticing the prices of real estate go up. After the works are finished, every
square metre on the fringes of the CBD, and around the areas where the Games will
happen, real estate will go up 200%! My only concern is that the ones who have less
will be excluded to places such as Campo Grande [low-income community] very far
from the central region, because this will happen in the long-term. Because the
development comes, the technology comes, the improvements come, but this also
means regression, because those who have less consumer power will be slowly ‘invited
to leave’. That’s what happens. (VOG participants)
This quote illustrates well the issues local residents are currently facing and expecting to endure in
the next few years. It is clear that participants welcome some of these changes (e.g. new
technology, new infrastructure). Similarly to findings of research on the 2010 South Africa FIFA
World Cup (Pillay & Bass, 2008), participants in this study were generally supportive of sport
mega-events being hosted in the city, but after discussions about the actual benefits they
expected from these events on their lives it was clear that there was significant hesitation in
regards to who was going to effectively benefit or suffer from them:
There’s a lot of construction work, but it’s in the south zone [where the most affluent
neighbourhoods are located], around the CBD, but [not] here! (VOCN participant)
As Davidson (2008, p. 2401) points out, ‘sweeping statements about the winners and losers of
gentrification are [...] difficult to make’, but what seems clear is that some Gamboa community
members, particularly those living under more acute situations of marginality, will be eventually
and inevitably displaced.
The official presentation of the Porto Maravilha project highlights as a positive the real estate
valorisation of the area, clearly portraying the view of those who can benefit from the associated
market speculation (Porto Maravilha, 2012). Their stated aims further demonstrate the neoliberal
agenda clearly driving the project: ‘The project aims to redevelop the port area increasing the city
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center attractiveness as a whole and enhances Rio’s competitiveness [sic] position in the global
economy’ (Porto Maravilha, 2012, p. 8). Cornelissen (2012), among other analysts of mega-events
(e.g. Horne, 2007, 2012; Horne & Mazenreiter, 2006), has repeatedly warned about the
consequences of creating these spaces of leisure and entertainment financed by the global capital.
The issue of community displacement (Hall & Hodges, 1996; Kennelly & Watt, 2012; Porter,
Jaconelli, Cheyne, Eby, & Wagenaar, 2009; Silvestre & Oliveira, 2012) is just one of many
significant social matters associated with the hosting of mega-events: financial burdens being
transferred to tax payers (Hall & Wilson, 2011; Lee & Taylor, 2006), the discontinuation of social
projects (Lenskvj, 2007), the uneven distribution of benefits within host communities (Gaffney,
2010) and the (mis)use of (publicly-funded) facilities after the event (Hall & Wilson, 2011; Hiller,
2006) are some of the others. In the case of Gamboa, locals are bound to be displaced as a
consequence of a political agenda that prioritises economic development and image building over
social justice. It will not, however, be the first one in Rio de Janeiro to suffer such a predicament.
As Silvestre and Oliveira (2012) have denounced, Vila Autódromo, to name only one, is bound to
follow the same fate.
Public Sport Programmes in Cidade de Deus
As mentioned before, sport and physical activity programmes publicly available to the Brazilian
population are supported by the different levels of government, and in several instances also are
provided in partnership with the private sector and NGOs. Their focus and target groups obviously
differ from case to case and tend to vary from activities run in open spaces across the cities/towns,
to activities available only inside particular public institutions, such as public schools. The
commonality among all is their fee-free nature and tendency to be partaken mostly by members
of low-income communities. The programmes discussed below, identified as the governmentfunded programmes in operation or recently de-established in Cidade de Deus, all fit this context.
Segundo Tempo
The Segundo Tempo (Second Half) programme is an initiative of the Ministry of Sport and is one of
the longest uninterrupted national sport programmes in Brazilian contemporary history.
Established in 2003, the same year that the Ministry of Sport was created, the Segundo Tempo is
promoted as a ‘programme to encourage sport participation as a factor contributing to the
development of fully participating citizens and to a better quality of life’ (Brasil, 2012, n/p
[authors’ translation]). Probably due to its magnitude and alignment of its proclaimed aims with
the Olympic Education ideals (Knijnik & Tavares, 2012), the Segundo Tempo was included in the
Rio 2016 Bid Book as one of the main programmes to be used by the organising committee to
promote sport participation prior to, during and after the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro (Rio 2016,
2009). This inclusion was despite the fact that the programme was already well established at the
time of the candidature file’s submission in 2007, and therefore could not be regarded as an
action derived from, or a legacy of, the hosting of the Olympic Games. The argument, however,
was that there would be an increase of funding directed towards the programme by the federal
government as well as a guarantee of its long-term continuation (Rio 2016, 2009). As we will
discuss later in this report, issues of discontinuity are highly present and problematic in Brazilian
policy implementation in general (Spink, 1987) and in sport policy in particular (Athayde &
Mascarenhas, 2009; Sawitzki, 2012).
The Segundo Tempo programme focuses on children and youth who are exposed to social risks;
that is, those living in low-income communities. The programme is implemented through
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cooperation between the third sector and public institutions. Different organisations may apply for
the partnership, which consists of the Ministry of Sport funding a fairly standardised sport project:
it should reach at least 100 children/youth; offer each participant at least three types of sport,
with a minimum frequency of three times/week, for 2–4 hours a day; activities should be run
outside regular school hours; and snacks/refreshments as well as a uniform should be provided to
all participating children (Ministério do Esporte, 2012c).
In Cidade de Deus, according to the sports coordinator of the local community association,
Segundo Tempo ended around three years ago. To his knowledge, the programme was based in a
local public school reaching approximately 250 children. The informant indicated that the
programme had to be interrupted because the government did not continue the contract with the
local organisation responsible for administering it, but the reason why this happened was not clear
to him. Another resident, also involved with sport projects in this community, revealed that the
Segundo Tempo programme was available in Cidade de Deus until 2010, but corruption scandals
led to the conclusion of the programme in this particular community. Although the information
gathered from each informant is slightly conflicting, a macro-scale incident sheds some light on
the main issue here: in 2011 the former Minister of Sport, Mr Orlando Silva, was accused of
diverting funds and making irregular contracts (Revista Veja, 2011) as well as being involved in a
series of allegations of fraud (Nery & Matais, 2011), all relating to the Segundo Tempo
programme. In effect, the longest standing sport programme in the country has not endured long
enough in Cidade de Deus.
PELC/Pronasci
Another federal government programme focusing on the promotion of sport and physical activity
engagement in Cidade de Deus is the PELC/Pronasci. According to official documents, the
programme Esporte e Lazer na Cidade (Sport and Leisure in the City — PELC) developed by the
Ministry of Sport, and the Programa Nacional de Segurança Pública com Cidadania (National
Public Security with Citizenship Programme — Pronasci) and supported by the Ministry of Justice,
joined efforts to develop an inter-ministerial action to tackle more effectively the causes and
manifestations of violence (Ministério do Esporte, 2012a, 2012b; Secretaria Municipal de Esporte
e Lazer (SMEL), 2012a). PELC’s main stated goals are: 1) the training of managers and community
leaders about the possibilities and importance of developing public policies for sport and leisure,
and 2) the promotion of community integration by raising the self-esteem of participants and
contributing to the access of this social right (Ministério do Esporte, 2012b). Pronasci, on the other
hand, is a wider governmental programme that involves several different actions to reduce
violence and criminality in the country, and is based on the articulation of security policies with
government action in the social sphere (Ministério da Justiça, 2010). The combination of the two
programmes intends specifically to provide opportunities for the social reintegration of young
people in conflict with the law or who are considered socially vulnerable, so that they find
motivation in sport to develop personally and socially (SMEL, 2012a). In this sense, priority is given
to neighbourhoods with high rates of urban violence when deciding the locations for the physical
establishment of the programme. In Rio de Janeiro, this programme was also supported by the city
council’s sport and leisure department, SMEL.
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According to SMEL’s website (SMEL, 2012a), the PELC/Pronasci was structured to operate inside
the Praças da Juventude7 (Youth Squares), as well as in three other praças (public squares) within
the community boundaries. According to the official information, Cidade de Deus has four nuclei
of the PELC/Pronasci programme. However, no Praça da Juventude or PELC/Pronasci activities
were in operation when researchers visited the community; this was confirmed not only through
our visits to all local praças but also by local residents. In addition, we were able to talk to the
former coordinator of a PELC/Pronasci nucleus who is also a resident of Cidade de Deus. Our
informant confirmed that this programme ran in the Cidade de Deus community for less than two
years, until June 2012. However, according to her, the four nuclei were located in different places
from those indicated on the official website, therefore contradicting official information.
Probably because of the out-dated information presented on the official government website we
were not able to get many details about the project from official sources. Our local informant was,
again, our best channel to retrieve information. She indicated that the project, when in full
operation, reached around 800 children and adolescents outside of school hours, although
numbers were not stable, sometimes going down to 500 participants. The numbers, per se,
demonstrate the demand and need for such programmes in these communities. But our informant
was, as expected, highly critical of the conditions of work and delivery of activities provided by the
programme. According to her, the lack of infrastructure meant that the only activities able to be
offered to participating children were football, basketball and volleyball — activities that are
already the most widely available for children across the nation. She complained about the lack of
opportunity to develop other Olympic sports and that several empty spaces inside of the
community could be used to build better sport/physical activity infrastructure, including a longedfor public swimming pool.
Academia da Praça
Certainly the most visible public programme for sport and physical activity promotion in Cidade de
Deus is the Academia na Praça (Fitness Studio in the Square), which caters for individuals 15 years
of age and above. It was established in June 2011 and comprises fitness equipment installed in a
central square of the community (Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro, 2012). Despite being a ‘free to all’
project, participants are required to formally enrol, which includes undertaking a medical exam to
indicate whether they are fit to engage in physical activity. In order to receive a ‘certificate of
health’, individuals need to make an appointment with a medical practitioner, and in most cases
local community members can afford only to do so in a public hospital or public medical care unit,
as health insurance is prohibitive for most of this population. The issue here is that public health in
Rio de Janeiro is notoriously deficient and long queues (with waiting lists of sometimes days or
weeks) for basic medical appointments are common. Such a requirement, therefore, can be an
impediment for individuals who lack the time (or patience) to obtain such a medical exam. In fact,
several residents of the community, when discussing their opportunities to engage in sport and
physical activity with the researchers, indicated that the requirement of a medical exam to enrol in
the Academia da Praça is indeed a significant barrier to participation. Therefore, a programme that
is designed to reach a large cohort of community members and that aims to improve the health of
the community from the outset presents a significant constraint to wide participation.
7
Praça da Juventude is yet another federal government project targeting communities located in urban areas which
have limited or no access to public sport and leisure facilities. It is a programme designed by the Ministry of Sport and
implemented with state and local government support, as well as through the abovementioned partnership with the
Ministry of Justice (Ministério do Esporte, 2012a).
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The Academia na Praça project is financed by the Ministry of Sport (federal government), Rio de
Janeiro City Council (local government) and, not surprisingly, Santander Bank (private enterprise).
The project was, in fact, designed by an NGO that is also responsible for managing and
implementing units across the country. It is, therefore, an initiative of the third sector with
government support and private sector funding. The project falls within a Ministry of Sport
programme associated with the Lei de Incentivo ao Esporte (Incentives for Sport Law), which
allows private enterprises to direct 1% of their taxes to sport/physical activity projects approved
by the government and, in return, have their brand associated with these. In Rio, the project was
initially established on some beaches along the more affluent areas of the city and recently it has
been established in three low-income communities, including Cidade de Deus (Academia da Praça,
2012).
Although not directed exclusively to youth, a large cohort of participants is, indeed, of young
adults aged between 18 and 25 years, this is particularly due to the difficulties described above
related to ‘certificates of health’. Even though this project may be viewed as not directly related to
Olympic ideals, due to its focus on general exercise and not on sports, we felt that being a publiclyfunded project aimed at increasing levels of engagement in physical activity and reaching a large
group of at-risk youth, it was relevant to include it in our discussions.
Rio em Forma Olímpico
Established by the municipal government and administered by the new Empresa Municipal
Olímpica, Rio em Forma Olímpico is an attempt by the local council to leverage the Olympic Games
for sport practice. It aims to make use of public spaces suitable for sport practice across the city,
offering Olympic sport to children and youth who are enrolled in public schools. Activities for
adults are also offered but are fewer in number. The programme was established in 2009 and is
now accessed by more than 24,000 individuals in 436 nuclei covering 115 communities in the city
(Empresa Olímpica Municipal, 2012). Thus, it is a significant programme offered in the city with the
Olympic name.
Cidade de Deus has three nuclei of Rio em Forma Olímpico, currently enrolling more than 300
individuals, including children, youth and adults (Rio em Forma Olímpico staff, personal
communication, 07/12/12). Activities on offer in this community are futsal, futebol society and
fitness classes, and take place three times a week for two hours each day. The programme
employs not only physical education professionals, but also counsellors, educators, social service
specialists and a local community member who is responsible for promoting the programme
within the community.
It is surprising to find that only one source of official information on the programme mentions the
‘Olympic name’ to indicate that the hosting of the Olympic Games served as an ‘encouragement’
for the establishment of the programme (Empresa Olímpica Municipal, 2012). It does not make
reference to Olympic values or ideals, and the purported aim of the project is to ‘reduc[e] truancy
school dropout rates and improve[e] academic performance’ (Empresa Olímpica Municipal, 2012,
n/p). This source does indicate, however, that one of its expected results is to ‘[p]rovid[e] the
population with means to increase practices involving physical activity, thus encouraging a
healthier life style’ (Empresa Olímpica Municipal, 2012, n/p). In this sense it fits well with Rio
2016’s objective of increasing sport participation in the city. The problem, however, is that there is
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no clear indication of its expected longevity. The estimated cost of the project is R$63 million8 and
the timeframe for implementation disclosed to the public only states that December 2009 marks
the establishment of Phase 1 and December 2011 marks Phase 2. How many phases and what
each phase means in regards to the project’s implementation and objectives is not clear anywhere
in the document.
Another official source uses a different approach to presenting the same project. In SMEL’s
website some Olympic values are invoked, although no mention to ‘Olympics’ is made: ‘[t]he
project focuses on emotional and educational values that can be mobilized by the practice of sport
and leisure’ (SMEL, 2012b, n/p [translated by the authors]). The aim of the project according to
SMEL is not to reduce school dropout rates, but to offer activities within low-income communities
that can improve their quality of life (SMEL, 2012b).
A third official document was analysed. A 7-page press release obtained from the programme’s
coordinator offered extra detail about the project, nonetheless providing more contradictory
information. The focus on sport as a powerful educational and cultural tool is emphasised here, as
well as its role in improving health indicators and overall quality of life. It also emphasises the
constitutional right to sport and leisure and SMEL’s role in facilitating access to the enactment of
this right. The project is presented along these lines but clearly argued as another one of a long
lineage of programmes implemented by SMEL to achieve the goal of providing sport opportunities
for the carioca population (Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro, n/d). It obviously does not acknowledge
the lack of consistency in the delivery of these programmes along the 23 years of SMEL’s
existence.
According to this press release, the focus of the programme is to reach socially vulnerable
individuals, particularly children and youth. To achieve this, the council identifies communities
where values for HDI and Social Development Index (SDI) are low to implement nuclei of the
programme. The objectives this time combine the two found in the abovementioned sources,
including reducing school evasion, stimulating improvements in the quality of life of cariocas and
empowering residents of low-income communities.
It is again surprising to note that this document, by far the most detailed we have been able to
secure access to, does not mention the Olympic Games at all, with the only reference to the
Games in the name of the programme itself. It does, however, covers aspects advocated by the
Olympic Movement, such as the inclusion of values and ideals espoused by this Movement in the
pedagogical framework of the programme. It is certainly an improvement to some of the other
programmes analysed here but one that is yet to be assessed for its effectiveness.
Similarly to other programmes previously analysed, Rio em Forma Olímpico also makes use of the
third sector to operate its activities. Two Organizações Sociais (Social Organisations — OSs) have
been selected to run the project’s activities through open public tender, and in 2011 they received
more than R$12 million9 each in funds to manage the project (Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro, 2011).
The programme’s official website makes no mention to these ‘partnerships’, thus it remains
unclear what power the local council actually has over the quality of services provided by these
OSs or how long these institutions will remain as managers of the project’s nuclei.
8
9
Approximately US$30 million at December 2012 rates.
More than US$ 6 million in December 2012 rates.
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Sport Participation in Action
It is clear from the results above that the different phases of this study are complementary and
that there are recurrent issues across different communities that need to be addressed by the
different levels of government. In particular, our results indicate that there are important issues
hindering the quality of provision of sport and physical activity opportunities to youth of lowincome communities in Rio de Janeiro.
Discontinuity and Instability
Instability and discontinuity of sport programmes was identified in this study and is a problem
reported by other Brazilian researchers (Sawitzki, 2012; Athayde & Mascarenhas, 2009). This was
particularly the case with the programmes taking place in Cidade de Deus. Nonetheless, the Vilas
Olímpicas, although long standing and apparently still expanding (e.g. the recent establishment of
the Vila Olímpica do Mato Alto and the ‘brand new’ Vila Olímpica Dr Sócrates in Pedra de
Guarativa), suffer from management instability, since funding presents clear impediments for its
full and successful operation.
There are a few considerations to make in this respect. First, the sport programmes depend on
political will, with contingencies, programmes and projects typically being interrupted or
significantly modified with every new election. This issue is so recurrent and problematic in
Brazilian Government administration that the term ‘administrative discontinuity’ has been
attached to the normalised practice of discontinuing most if not all programmes, successful or
otherwise, developed and implemented by the previous political party (Spink, 1987). This becomes
even more challenging given the political organisation of the country, one which hosts 27 different
political parties that (in most cases) do actually have seats/representatives in the different levels
of government. Changes in political leadership and agendas are, therefore, a constant and
‘administrative discontinuity’ is a consequent ‘pathology’ of the system.
It is important to note that problems of discontinuity in some of the programmes described above
have occurred despite the political stability experienced by the country for the past 10 years. The
Labour Party has been in power at the national level since 2003, when President Luis Inácio Lula da
Silva began his first mandate, and will remain in that position at least until the end of 2014, when
President Dilma Roussef’s first mandate expires. Sport and leisure policy in the federal realm has,
therefore, experienced some stability with the long-term implementation of some of their
programmes, like the Segundo Tempo. However, even within this context of political stability at
the national level, ‘on the ground’ experiences seem far from stable and long-term, as presented
above. Although the Segundo Tempo project, for example, has been running across the country
for years now, the longevity of each specific nucleus of activity is less stable, as the Cidade de Deus
case indicates. A study conducted by Athayde and Mascarenhas (2009) presents even stronger
evidence of this claim: the findings of an investigation of Segundo Tempo in the Brazilian Federal
District between 2003 and 2006 showed that the number of nuclei in operation varied widely from
year to year, and that only a few projects were continuous for more than one year. In addition,
newly established projects have no well-defined long-term aims and their continuity is never fully
secured. As Suassuna (2007) argues, all sport programmes reviewed in this study are not part of an
apolitical sport policy programme that has the support of all levels of government, including the
Senate and the Congress, and therefore are national policies to their core. They are but short- and
medium-term programmes to attend immediate public demand and therefore have little potential
to endure long-term changes.
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One of the reasons for the lack of continuity may also be attributed to the internal conflicts within
and between public administration bodies mentioned by Melo (2005b). As these national sport
promotion programmes are usually implemented as partnerships between different government
bodies as well as private institutions and NGOs, conflict regarding the different modus operandi of
different organisations together with political changes at the local and state levels can lead to
over-bureaucratisation and conflict of interest resulting in the eventual discontinuation of
programmes (Athayde & Mascarenhas, 2009). Although it is advocated that policy interventions
aimed at sport and leisure promotion need to go beyond the sport sectors (Schöppe et al., 2004),
in the Brazilian context, due to its political, cultural and bureaucratic systems, this presents some
difficulties, such as the ones mentioned above.
Public-Private Partnerships
Another significant issue faced by sport policies in Brazil relates to the ‘sub-contractual’ nature of
most government actions, transferring a great deal of its own responsibilities, as stated in the
national constitution, to the private sector (Bernardo, Silva, Morais, & Coutinho, 2011; Melo,
2007). Following the populist, but arguably neoliberal, agenda of the current Labour Party
Government in Brazil (Melo, 2007; Nozaki & Penna, 2007), public policies such as the Lei do
Incentivo ao Esporte, within which the Academia da Praça is located, are commonly justified by
promoting their flexibility in terms of target groups being reached, the variety of activities to be
offered, the communities targeted, and also — most importantly — the engagement of the private
sector to soften the financial burden on the state.
However, if this policy is critically analysed, one can easily identify some important weaknesses.
First, there is again the problem of discontinuity, as private ‘sponsors’ do not have to make a longterm commitment to supporting the specific chosen project. If they decide to discontinue their
financial support most projects consequently will be de-established. In addition, the highly
bureaucratic system present in any governmental institution in Brazil presents further challenges
to the continuation of programmes, as private sector organisations as well as NGOs have different
expectations and capabilities for dealing with the ‘bureaucratic state’ (Athayde & Mascarenhas,
2009; Melo, 2007). Second, private businesses’ main interest is, in most instances, the ‘visibility’ of
the project and its marketing potential. Therefore, small scale projects or projects located outside
important consumer markets will likely not find sponsors to support their activities and will not,
therefore, be implemented. The issue of uneven distribution of resources is also of concern, as
each project proponent (typically NGOs) are responsible for finding their own sponsors — a task
that will likely favour individuals and institutions who possess strong networks within the private
sector. As a consequence, community groups, particularly those in small and poor areas, will have
little chance of getting their projects financed. Lastly, issues of accountability and consistency in
content delivery may be jeopardised as by delegating the task of managing the projects to private
or third sector institutions the state immediately reduces its control over the delivery of activities.
Evidence for some of the above claims is easily found in the Academia na Praça programme, for
instance. It is significant to note here, and within the context discussed above, that two of the
three communities benefited by the project are located in the immediate fringes of ‘rich’
neighbourhoods (Rocinha is located beside São Conrado, one of the most expensive areas in Rio,
and Cidade de Deus is located beside Barra da Tijuca, again a very affluent neighbourhood city).
The third community, Complexo do Alemão, is located in the northern and less affluent region of
the city, but also the most populated, where the increases in consumer power of lower classes
mentioned in the introduction of this report has been particularly felt (Neri, 2010). Complexo do
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Alemão is surrounded by several very populous middle-class neighbourhoods. Moreover, the
three selected communities are among the most populated low-income communities in the city,
Cidade de Deus being the less populated of the three. Complexo do Alemão and Rocinha have
each in excess of 120,000 residents, with a growing consumer market living within their
boundaries (Neri, 2010). It seems reasonable to assume that their ‘strategic’ location/population
played a significant role in their selection for the establishment of the programme.
The case of the Vilas Olímpicas is also an exemplar of this situation. The two Vilas Olímpicas that
have been able to secure sponsorships outside of local government which is mandated with their
maintenance have been able to expand their activities and reach to the community, but as funding
agencies do not provide financial support for infrastructural and equipment costs, the actual
facilities are rapidly deteriorating just like the others. It is clear that infrastructural problems are a
major impediment to their providing the services they are delegated to supply to the local
population. It is necessary therefore that a realistic budget is allocated to these public
programmes, despite the possibility of partnerships, for them to effectively deliver quality sport
and physical activity opportunities for the local population, particularly children and youth.
In effect, therefore, the approach to public sport policy encountered in this study represents a
clear attempt to take away the responsibility of directly and systematically funding social sport
programmes from the state and consequently transfer its constitutional duty to private
institutions or other NGOs that are, usually for their own benefit, interested in associating their
names to ‘government-certified’ sport programmes (Bernardo et al., 2011). Within the context of
the ‘sport decade’, this issue is of particular significance as billions of public dollars are being spent
in the name of sports but do not seem to be directed towards the development of long-term
opportunities for low-income communities to access sustainable sport and physical activity
programmes. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be an isolated case in mega-events-related
programmes, with South Africa facing issues of a similar nature when hosting the 2010 FIFA World
Cup (Cornelissen, 2011).
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CONCLUSIONS
In its desire to reach international notoriety for being a prosperous and potentially powerful
country, Brazil too has engaged in the race to host mega-events. At the end of the second decade
of the twenty-first century, Brazil will have hosted the two largest sport events in the world — the
FIFA Football World Cup and the Summer Olympic Games — plus at least three other major sport
events: the Pan-American Games, the World Military Games and the FIFA Football Confederations
Cup. According to the Rio de Janeiro Bid Book, one of the key aims of hosting the Olympic Games
in Rio de Janeiro is to promote and develop sport in the country (Rio 2016, 2009). In fact, more
than that: ‘In addition to the physical legacy of sporting facilities and trained sport volunteers
resulting from the games, the Rio 2016 Legacy Plan includes initiatives to develop sport in Brazil,
South America and the rest of the world’ (Rio 2016, 2009, p. 17). Our investigations aimed at
providing a contribution in this direction by investigating the current conditions under which this
ambitious aim is situated and how, so far, the Brazilian Government, together with the OCOG, are
preparing and delivering their stated sport participation legacies. It is an attempt to follow Horne’s
(2012, p. 2) suggestion that difficult questions about the hosting of sport mega-events, particularly
the Olympic Games, need to be asked because ‘[i]f shedding new light on sport and the Olympics
can lead to alterations and challenges to balances of power, this might bring about change in sport
or the Olympics and thus contribute to wider progressive social change’.
In order to engage with these ‘difficult questions’, in the literature review section we reviewed the
historical developments of the sport participation legacy idea as well as the complexity in
predicting, assessing and actually reaching the so-often assumed positive legacy of increased sport
and physical activity participation from staging large-scale sport events, and particularly the
Olympic Games. This background was provided in order to present the reader with the context in
which discussions about sport participation legacies current lie. The section concludes questioning
the ‘very possibility of assessing and identifying the manifold and multifaceted legacies of megaevents’ (Klauser, 2012, p. 2), particularly regarding an increase in sport and physical activity
participation and its consequent health benefits.
From this context we moved to present the research project itself, investigating governmentfunded projects and programmes aimed at increasing sport participation rates among children and
youth of low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro, the host of the 2016 Olympic Games. Our
findings, instead of providing an empirical, quantifiable indication or assessment of the actual
increase of sport participation after being selected to host the largest sport event in the world,
raised other significant issues regarding the assumed benefits of sport participation and the
political context within which actions in this direction are situated — themes which are not
commonly introduced in discussions about sport participation legacy planning and management.
More specifically, our findings indicate that the initiatives so far proposed and executed by the
different levels of the Brazilian Government as well as the OCOG have not been extensively felt or
successful in reaching the people who are in most need: those children and youth living in lowincome communities and therefore more vulnerable and at-risk.
This is not to say that the programmes investigated, particularly the Vilas Olímpicas programme,
are not welcomed or in fact important for the people who participate in them. We follow Melo
(2005a) in acknowledging their significance whilst recognising that they reach but a small fraction
of the marginalised members of Rio de Janeiro society. More significantly, as Melo (2005a, p. 104
[translated by the authors]) points out:
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[...] this mythical ‘salvationist’ character, almost religious, of being able to solve all social
maladies just because of their [sport programmes] existence, represents a façade for obtaining
consensus and a political position that ignores a critical analysis of the participants’ living
conditions. If, undoubtedly, [sport programmes] represent more opportunities for leisure and
sports for the ones who are able to participate, it is necessary to point out that there is no
direct and linear association with potential improvements in the living conditions of the
population. This issue suggests that if access to sports and leisure is fundamental, it is not
sufficient to enable an effective improvement in living conditions.
It is along these lines that we have argued in this report that it is not sufficient, as a legacy plan, to
implement scattered sport programmes across the city that have no long-term focus or
commitment and that do not engage with an approach to sport participation that is critical and
empowering for the marginalised residents of the city. Within this context our results indicate also
that there is an overarching ideology behind the planning and delivery of mega-events and their
legacies in Rio de Janeiro guided by a Western economic development philosophy that uses these
events as neoliberal tools for growth (Hall & Wilson, 2011). As a consequence, priorities are
subverted and instead of public money being spent in education and health, including through
mass participation sport programmes, it is spent in stadia construction that is arguably peripheral
in a scheme of high priorities for the city and likely to reach only the already most affluent
cariocas. We therefore concur with Cornelissen (2010) when she argues that the exceptional case
of international exposure through sport mega-events certainly lies within a political agenda that
seeks more than just the purported economic and social gains these events may bring. In fact, our
results indicate that similarly to South Africa in 2010, ‘[t]he targeting and actual patterns of public
expenditure are at odds with the national’s government purported focus on social development’
(Cornelissen, 2011, p. 525). Increasing mass sport participation in Rio de Janeiro is certainly not
ranking highly in any such agenda.
Thus, going back to Rio 2016’s statement that their legacy plan ‘includes initiatives to develop
sport in Brazil, South America and the rest of the world’ (Rio 2016, 2009, p. 17), from our results it
seems more appropriate to follow British journalist David Runciman’s statement that ‘[i]n reality,
sports tournaments rarely do much to transform the fortunes of the countries that host them —
at least not for the better — let alone change the fate of whole continents. But they can tell us a
lot about where power really lies’ (2010, as quote in Horne, 2012, p. 5). We do hope that by
making these considerations at the early stages of planning for Rio 2016’s legacies that there is a
‘power shift’ and that planning officials and politicians who are involved with the staging of Rio
2016 start planting the seeds for harvesting truly long-term and positive legacies in time for the
opening ceremony.
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