There are only a few days to go before the Brazil World Cup begins. Will the streets be safe? Will there be protest and violence again? After mass demonstrations marked the Confederations Cup last year, the fragile security and violence situation means that no one knows what to expect during the biggest football event in the world.

Though the World Cup has brought some positive change to Brazil, the 14 billion USD investments fail to deliver opportunities for long-term development, American scholar and activist Christopher Gaffney writes.

The World Cup in Brazil is not only challenged by the risk of civil unrest. Violence in and around football stadiums is notorious in South American football. The tournament’s immediate success will partly depend on the ability to curb the violent fans, but the problems go deeper, writes Javier Szlifman.

The FIVB General Director Fábio Azevedo is accused of taking a million-dollar bribe in a domestic case from Brazil that now leads to an investigation of FIVB President Ary Graça.

Comment: While the public demand for better governance in sport rings louder than ever, sports leaders are confronted with troubles inherited from the past

Conflicting views on Brazil’s staging of the 2014 World Cup were presented by panellists from both ends of the critical spectrum in a plenary session entitled Mega-events and democracy: The Brazilian challenge on the closing day of Play the Game.

Brazil’s Deputy Minister of Sport Luis Fernandes is ready to debate with critics of the country’s mega-events this Thursday at Play the Game 2013.

Countless Brazilians are taking to the streets in protests that started as an uprising against increasing transportation prices and evolved into country-wide demonstrations against the World Cup spending among other things. In this article, Erich Beting, Brazilian journalist and sports business expert, gives his account of the demonstrations.