Stadium Venues World Cup 2014

Seventeen cities showed interest in being chosen as FIFA World Cup 2014 host cities: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Brasília, Belém, Campo Grande, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Fortaleza, Goiânia, Manaus, Natal, Recife (a stadium would be shared by both cities), Rio Branco and Salvador. Maceió withdrew in January 2009.

According to current FIFA practice, no more than one city may use two stadiums, and the number of host cities is limited between eight and ten. The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) requested permission to assign 12 cities hosting World Cup Finals. On 26 December 2008, FIFA gave the green light to the 12-city plan.

Even before the 12 host cities were selected, there were few doubts that the chosen venue for the final match will be the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, which also hosted the decisive match of the 1950 FIFA World Cup. Originally the CBF's intentions were to have the opening match at Estádio do Morumbi in São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil. However, on 14 June 2010 the stadium was excluded from hosting games in the tournament due to a failure to provide financial guarantees for the improvements needed to have it as an eligible venue. In the end of August 2010, the CBF announced that the new Corinthians stadium will host the matches in São Paulo.

The 12 host cities for the 2014 World Cup were announced on 31 May 2009. Belém, Campo Grande, Florianópolis, Goiânia and Rio Branco were rejected.

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Logo of FIFA World Cup 2014

The logo of FIFA World Cup 2014 is called "Inspiration", and was created by Brazilian agency Africa. The design stems from an iconic photograph of three victorious hands together raising the world's most famous trophy. As well as depicting the humanitarian notion of hands interlinking, the portrayal of the hands is also symbolic of the yellow and green of Brazil warmly welcoming the world to their country. The logo of FIFA World Cup 2014 was unveiled at a ceremony held in Johannesburg on 8 July 2010.

FIFA and the Brazil LOC invited 25 Brazilian-based agencies to submit designs for the Official Emblem of the 2014 tournament and the task of picking the winner was awarded to a high-profile seven-strong judging panel consisting of CBF chairman Ricardo Teixeira, FIFA executive secretary Jérôme Valcke, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, architect Oscar Niemeyer, writer Paulo Coelho, singer Ivete Sangalo, and designer Hans Donner.

Brazilian graphic designer Alexandre Wollner has criticized the design, suggesting it resembles a hand covering a face in shame, and the process through which it was chosen, having a jury that excluded professional graphic designers

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2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be the 20th World Cup, an international tournament for football, that is expected to take place between June and July 2014 in Brazil.

This will be the second time the country has hosted the competition, the first being the 1950 FIFA World Cup. Brazil will become the fifth country to have hosted the FIFA World Cup twice, after Mexico, Italy, France and Germany. It will be the first World Cup to have been held in South America since the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina and the first time consecutive World Cups have been staged in the Southern Hemisphere. Brazil also will become the first nation to break the well-established chain of allowing a European nation to host the World Cup Finals every eight years.

On 7 March 2003, the world football body FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in South America for the first time since Argentina hosted the 1978 FIFA World Cup, in line with its policy of rotating the right to host the World Cup amongst different confederations. On 3 June 2003, CONMEBOL announced that Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia wanted to host the 2014 World Cup finals. By 17 March 2004, the CONMEBOL associations had voted unanimously to adopt Brazil as their sole candidate. Brazil formally declared its candidacy in December 2006 and Colombia did so as well a few days later. The Argentina bid never materialized. On 11 April 2007, Colombia officially withdrew its bid making Brazil the only official candidate to host the event in 2014.

Brazil won the right to host the event on 30 October 2007 as the only country to enter a bid.

Seventeen cities showed interest in being chosen as 2014 FIFA World Cup host cities: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Brasília, Belém, Campo Grande, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Fortaleza, Goiânia, Manaus, Natal, Recife/Olinda (a stadium will be shared by both cities), Rio Branco and Salvador. Maceió withdrew in January 2009.

According to current FIFA practice, no more than one city may use two stadia, and the number of host cities is limited between eight and ten. The Brazilian Confederation requested permission to assign twelve cities hosting World Cup Finals. On 26 December 2008, FIFA gave the green light to the 12-city plan.

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