Is fan safety really in danger at this year’s World Cup?

This year’s world cup could be a great one for the England squad. England manager Roy Hodgson has stated that he is confident in the team this year and, while he doesn’t falsely believe that England are the favourites to win, he has stated that he “refuses to believe we need to be written off”.

While confident with his team and their performance this year, he has made a point of stating his concerns over the safety of the fans while in Brazil for the Cup.

In an article posted on the BBC website, Hodgson raised his thoughts on the subject , saying “As far as we [the team] are concerned we are going to have a lot of protection, and it’s more for the fans that this is a larger concern“.

While Hodgson and many others are voicing their concerns on the matter, it seems that FIFA are somewhat avoiding the subject on both their news site and their twitter account, with most of their tweets being simple team news updates.

It’s obvious why FIFA wouldn’t want to draw any more attention to the subject, but exactly what safety concerns are there, and what can be done to avoid possible danger when attending the world cup in Brazil this year?

The main concerns arose when Brazil’s sports minister boldly admitted that some fans would be facing the risk of being held up at knife-point or being raped in Brazil during the World Cup. While this seems to be a very stark claim and may not hold true to the majority of people visiting during the Cup, the fact that violence in Brazil exists is true and has to be accepted.

This kind of violence in Brazilian cities such as Rio has seen a decrease over the last couple of years. However, a sudden re-increase has been observed due to controversy over the costs of the World Cup.

Hodgson also stated that he “just has to be trusting in our security, the security of the Brazilian government and all the things that FIFA will do to make it secure for the fans and the players.” It seems that at this stage all fans can do is just that: trust that the Brazilian government will do their best to host a secure World Cup and for fans to take as much care as possible.