Construction work continues on the Itaquerão stadium in São Paulo — the venue that will host the first game of the World Cup on June 12.
The stadium was supposed to be finished in December 2013, but the project was delayed after the deaths of three construction workers.
At the venue's final test event last Sunday, only 40,000 of 65,000 tickets were sold because a large section of temporary bleachers had yet to be approved by the fire department.
There are two sets of temporary bleachers that jut out awkwardly from both ends of the rectangular stadium. After the World Cup, they will be removed to reduce the seating capacity for Brazilian first division games.
From the ground the northern bleachers look, well, kind of sketchy. There's no siding to create a facade around the back and sides of the structure, giving the impression that it's propped up by a bunch of scaffolding:
This is the "Itaquerão" Stadium temporary grandstand. do you put you son there? Stadium design for 1 match FIFA WC pic.twitter.com/2TJOaXcm6n
— Edu M (@eduamorato) June 4, 2014You can see how the stands stick out of the roof of the stadium. The permanent part of the stadium is gleaming white, while the temporary part is dark grey:
There's still a ton of construction going on:
According to UOL, the plan is to finish the bleachers by Friday or Saturday. The site reports that weight stress tests have been performed with sandbags and a device that simulates tremors was also used in a test. The fire department was scheduled to visit the site on Wednesday.
There's no reason to think the bleachers aren't structurally sound. They just look slightly terrifying, especially with the dramatic height created by the hill below the back of the stands.
Geraint Hughes of Sky Sports went to the test event and said it felt like part of the stadium was "missing,"saying of the bleachers, "One end of the £300million stadium is very much unfinished. It has no roof and it just looked like scaffolding with no attempt yet to hide a pretty ugly facade."