RIO DE JANEIRO, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff Tuesday rejected remarks from FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke, who said recently that Brazil is more concerned about winning the World Cup than about actually organizing the tournament.
In an interview on a local TV station, President Rousseff said that she disagreed with the statement.
"It is wrong how a country which hosts the World Cup is forced to hear certain considerations about itself and its sovereignty, a country which has all the conditions to make the best World Cup in an orderly manner," she said.
Rousseff reaffirmed that the government will not tolerate riots and attempts to prevent fans from watching the World Cup matches, in an allusion to the possibility of anti-World Cup protests taking place amid the tournament. According to the President, though protests are "absolutely legitimate", destruction and vandalism are "neither legitimate nor democratic".
Last year, millions of Brazilians went to the streets to call for better public services and complain about corruption and high governmental expenses with the World Cup. Some protests ended in violent conflicts between protesters and the police. The protests took place during the FIFA Confederations Cup, and many of them took place in the vicinity of stadiums, though fans' access to the arenas was not compromised at any time.
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