We are proud to present our initial report, Less Than Two Years to Rio, ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games. As the title suggests, Brazil is now under the two-year mark: less than 644 days before kickoff!

Over the course of the past five months, our team of investigators in Brazil has endeavored to collect information from sources in the twelve host cities in preparation for this report on the politics, business, and security of World Cup planning in Brazil. At the conclusion of this tremendous research, synthesis, and writing effort, we are pleased with a final product that presents a single source to prepare any outsider with the tools to understand in-depth the complexities of this fascinating country and its various efforts ahead of two major international sporting events.

Our Soccer Politics section is by design a political Powermap with the current head of the Brazilian soccer federation, José Maria Marin at the center. His rise to power under the scandalous departure of Ricardo Teixeira provided a shaky start to the reorganization of the highest levels of soccer politics in Brazil. Our team has prepared a social map of the resulting social club. We present by name, face and bio the individuals who are the most influential in how they may convince the president of Brazilian soccer to sway his decision one way or another – decisions that along the road toward the World Cup could affect anyone visiting the country before or during the event. We have also deciphered how these individuals are connected to one another and several of the disparate corners of Brazil’s larger political ecosystem.

The big business of Brazil’s World Cup preparations is valued in several hundreds of billions of dollars; it is at best a complex system of public-private relationships. Our business section, Soccer Business, focuses on unraveling the complexity of Brazil’s bidding process. It outlines the different types of bids, modalities for bids, the oversight process, and explores avenues for corruption, favoritism, and loopholes. We explore cases of each, and finalize this section with an extensive break down by city of bids that have happened. Where possible, we have discovered who won these bids as part of an effort to better understand the complex systems down to the city level that oversee bidding, awarding, and oversight. There is no other product in English that centralizes this information in one single report.

Likewise, we have endeavored to dig deep into Brazil’s security concerns. We argue that a tactical or even strategic focus of neighborhoods in each city would be premature. Security in Brazil in 2012 is not security in Brazil in 2014 or 2016. Our Soccer Security section represents the first of a series of reports; as such we have focused on the locations of hotels, airports, and stadiums, and how to get from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel to the stadium. We have provided two maps for each city to outline specific routes and locations, including in some cities areas where our local investigators have identified spots of concern due to traffic. What discussion we do offer focuses on the security efforts leading up to the World Cup, specifically the increased policing effort in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and how these efforts have produced both positive and negative effects in the Brazilian criminal system.

In closing, it is important to mention that this entire report represents the product of a well-organized system of investigation and monitoring. Our investigators across Brazil proved invaluable while collecting information. As our team continues to monitor progress on the ground in Brazil across political, economic, and criminal systems, we stand ready to assist our readers, clients, and members with support as they seek to understand Brazil – a country that has only recently begun to realize its full potential.