Valcke says there's no Plan B for Maracana

SAO PAULO (AP) — FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke said Thursday that he has received guarantees from Rio de Janeiro authorities that the Maracana stadium will be ready on time for the Confederations Cup in June.

A day after the stadium's construction site was flooded and Valcke expressed concerns with the venue, the secretary general said there was no Plan B in place and that local officials had confirmed that the famed stadium will be delivered on April 27.

FIFA was satisfied even though the delivery date will come after the April 15 deadline that organizers promised to abide by just a few months ago. The local 2014 World Cup organizing committee had pledged last November to have every stadium used in the Confederations Cup completed by that date.

Committee president Jose Maria Marin said at the time that "the stadium which isn't ready on April 15 will be excluded, that's our commitment to FIFA."

But with 100 days before the Confederations Cup begins, Valcke downplayed the actual delivery date of the venues and said that what "is crucial" is the date of the "first test games" in the six venues.

"You will always want perfection," Valcke said. "You want to be ready with 100 days prior to the competition. You want to have nothing to look at because all is ready to be opened or to be used 100 days before the competition. But we know that it's not the way it works. It's rare that things are on time."

Valcke spoke at a news conference following a three-day visit to inspect some of the host cities.

"You are just starting to be a bit more nervous when you are 100 days away from the competition, you are starting to look at everything," Valcke said.

Local organizers remained confident about the country's preparations and said all the venues will be ready.

"It's been hard work up to now," Marin said after the committee's board meeting in Rio de Janeiro. "The next few months are going to be even busier and even more challenging. The level of commitment and willingness shown by everyone involved, including the Brazilian people, fuels our belief that we will be ready on time."

Maracana will host the final of the Confederations Cup and of the World Cup. It will also host the opening and closing ceremonies of the Rio Olympics in 2016. Parts of the venue were submerged on Wednesday after heavy rain caused havoc in Rio de Janeiro a day earlier.

Valcke said Rio authorities and constructors working on Maracana's renovation will meet on Friday to finalize the details of the venue's delivery. The stadium is set to host a friendly between Brazil and England on June 2.

"There is no Plan B," Valcke said. "That's why we are pushing and making sure that all the people involved are meeting regularly to ensure that we have the stadiums ready for the Confederations Cup. We took the decision to play in six stadiums, there's a match schedule, we sold tickets from the six stadiums already and there's no possibility to change it."

FIFA wanted all Confederations Cup stadiums ready by last December but extended the deadline until April because of the delays. Only two venues have been delivered so far — in Fortaleza and Belo Horizonte — and organizers are racing to get the other four ready.

Valcke said it would be ideal to have three test events in each stadium but added that two will be "fine."

The Confederations Cup will open in Brasilia on June 15 and the final at Maracana will be on June 30. The warm-up tournament for the World Cup will also be played in Recife and Salvador.

Valcke said more than 500,000 tickets have already been sold for the Confederations Cup, more than in 2005 and 2009 at this stage. He said there are about 300,000 tickets left.

Valcke also announced that both the Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup will be smoke-free events.