Article published on page 7 of the newspaper O Globo on June 1, 07
MARCIO BRAGA
Clube de Regatas do Flamengo developed a project to build a new soccer stadium at its Gávea headquarters. This is both a dream and a necessity for the club. We've been in Gávea since 1932 and had an active stadium in the same location until the 60s. However, the club ceded part of the land to open Rua Mário Ribeiro, helping to facilitate vehicle traffic between the South Zone and Barra da Tijuca. At the same time, Flamengo also gave up other facilities at its headquarters to facilitate the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas traffic circle. Since then, we haven't had a stadium. What we're left with is a fragment of a stadium. The goal of the project is to build an entire stadium, suitable for today's and tomorrow's world, and thus restore the original purpose of the decree that ceded the land to the club.
The dream of a new stadium has been around ever since we sacrificed the old one. It's fueled, even, by unfulfilled promises from authorities. The current project aims to return the stadium to Flamengo and offer club members, fans, Rio's South Zone, and the entire city a modern sports complex, with comfort and security, meeting FIFA standards. Integrated into this complex—to make it economically viable—is a shopping and leisure center. This model of sports venues integrated with retail and entertainment operations has been adopted to make nine out of every ten new stadiums built or under construction worldwide viable. This logic doesn't just apply to sports stadiums. It also applies to airports, for example. Our Santos Dumont doesn't cease to be an airport because it now incorporates around 10 stores. It becomes a more comfortable airport, with a wider range of services and less costly—or more profitable—for its owner, in this case, the government. This is precisely what we seek with our stadium. We will have a project financed by third parties, we will have new sources of income for Flamengo and we will offer more comfort and services to our members and the population.
Flamengo's stadium project has been raising doubts and even legitimate fears among club members, residents of the South Zone, community leaders, and authorities. Projects like this—and ours is no exception—also mobilize opposing commercial and political interests, some legitimate, others not. But Flamengo's Board of Directors has been seeking to respond and clarify all these doubts, fears, and criticisms, even limited by the fact that, in recent months, the project has had to undergo a long and difficult process of obtaining authorizations and licenses from the municipal, state, and federal governments, and, above all, because it is a matter still under discussion within the club. It is in the final stages of analysis by several technical committees and will be submitted to the Deliberative Council.
In this context, the article "Disorder by Decree," published on May 25th in O GLOBO, written by Councilwoman Andrea Gouvêa Vieira—who has been leading a relentless crusade against the new Flamengo Stadium on various fronts—reveals a perverse logic in seeking to anger the population of the South Zone against the project. So concerned about traffic in the area, the councilwoman offers no suggestions or proposals for the issue. Instead, she wants to prevent Flamengo from exercising its right in the name of a problem that she, as an authority, is not even helping to solve.
Unlike the councilwoman, Flamengo is genuinely concerned about the impact of its project on traffic and is willing to collaborate—as it has in the past—to solve the problem. The new stadium will provide 1.836 parking spaces. This is 32% more than required by law and will help organize parking in the area. Furthermore, Flamengo is available to assist authorities in finding solutions to speed up traffic flow during games. It's worth remembering that match times do not coincide with rush hour.
The councilwoman also decrees that the new Flamengo Stadium no longer fits in the South Zone and seems to suggest we move to other parts of the city. On this point, I prefer to speak as a Carioca, more in love with Rio with each new day of my 70 years. I agree with the authorities who plan to expand the city toward the North and West Zones. But this cannot mean abandoning the South Zone and condemning its residents to live in degraded areas, such as the area surrounding Flamengo's headquarters in Gávea. This area has long been another one of those areas off-limits to law-abiding citizens and their families, dominated by criminals who commit robberies and terrorize us at all hours of the day or night. The councilwoman ignores this, too.
Flamengo's new stadium will return this area to the population. It will host sports, social, and cultural activities, as well as commerce and entertainment, every day of the week, with wider sidewalks and improved lighting. This will create more income, more jobs, and offer healthy activities to Flamengo members and everyone who lives in our city.
MÁRCIO BRAGA is president of Flamengo.