National Network of Popular World Cup Committees – ANCOP

The goal of those project is to create the conditions necessary to hold the First Meeting of those Affected by Mega-events and Mega-projects in Brazil, which should bring together different groups and collectives such as informal workers and the homeless, whose rights have been violated by the World Cup, Confederations Cup and Olympic Games. A Justice, Reparations and Prevention Plan will also be created, which will be presented to the public authorities and all of civil society that is concerned with the impact of mega-events in Brazil and worldwide.

• Coordination and mobilization – planning, organization, networking and publicizing of the event;
• The First Meeting of those Affected by Mega-events and Mega-projects – to be held in Belo Horizonte (MG) on May 1-3.
• Presentation and submission of the Justice, Reparations and Prevention of Human Rights Violations Plan at different federal levels: municipal, national, state and at international organizations.

Since the end of 2007, Brazil has been in preparations to host events such as the Confederations Cup (2013), World Cup (2014) and the Olympic Games (2016). The innumerable demands related to the infrastructure needed to hold events of such scale require measures that, exacerbated by short deadlines, brought grave consequences to the populace, particular lower-income populations. At the municipal level, the mega-events provoked an increase in real-estate speculation, violent forced removals, increased vulnerability for children and adolescents subjected to the sexual exploitation market, among other factors stated by the UN, by ANCOP and by other organizations in countries that have hosted similar sporting mega-events. It is estimated that nearly 500,000 people will have been negatively affected, directly or indirectly, in their housing, their workplaces, their dignity, the liberty to come and go and their right to access to justice.

The National Network of Popular World Cup Committees – ANCOP – has as its mission to unite social movements, civil society organizations and communities affected by mega-events to be active in the process of resistance, denunciation and reparations for human rights violations that occur in Brazil due to the holding of the World Cup, Confederations Cup (FIFA) and the Olympic Games.

The National Network of Popular World Cup Committees is a network that integrates the World Cup People’s Committees of all the cities that will host the event, as well as social movements, NGOs, afflicted groups, research programs and science outreach programs participating in the process of resistance, denunciation and redress of human rights violations that occur due to the realization of these mega-events.

The project allowed space for ​​the free exchange of ideas, the sharing of knowledge and experiences and political discussions regarding facts considered relevant to the cities and the country in the context of big sports events. Other results are the improvement of the people’s organization, the identification of afflicted groups, the resistance, and the identity in the struggle, all fundamental to formulating an agenda for the struggle that goes beyond the World Cup. The “First Meeting of the People Afflicted – Who Loses with Mega-Events and Mega-Projects” had an intense schedule. One result was the dissemination of the letter “That the cry of ‘Goal!’ doesn’t smother our history.”