At Brazil's World Cup, a Battle Over Maracana Stadium Seats

Jamile Thome, a management consultant at Accenture in Rio de Janeiro, says her family has had unfettered use of eight seats at the city’s Maracanã stadium since her grandparents contributed to the financing of the stadium’s reconstruction in the 1960s. Besides allowing her to cheer on her local soccer team, Flamengo, the seats have given Thome access to concerts by the Police, Madonna, and the Backstreet Boys, and even a visit by Pope John Paul II. Each seat requires only an annual payment of R$740 ($365) in perpetuity.

Thome had expected to view the World Cup finals next year from the same prime real estate at the 79,000-seat Maracanã. But a May 13 ruling by a Rio court handed control of all the stadium’s seating to FIFA, soccer’s governing body, during the tourney. That has Thome and the holders of the other 4,960 perpetually reserved seats crying foul. “When they chose Maracanã for the World Cup they knew these tickets existed,” says Thome, 27, whose parents first took her to the arena when she was a year old. “They can’t pretend that we don’t exist. They chose a stadium with this kind of rule, so they have to respect it.”