SAO PAOLO: Some 53% of Brazilians say they have no interest in the World Cup, which starts this week in Russia, an extremely high level of disinterest in a country known for being passionate about football, a Datafolha survey published Tuesday shows.
Just 18% of the respondents said they had a high level of interest in the World Cup, which begins on Thursday, while another 18% rated their interest as medium and 9% said they had a low level of interest in the tournament, reports Efe.
The daily Folha de Sao Paulo published the results of the survey conducted last week of 2,824 people living in 174 cities.
Interest in the World Cup, according to the survey, has dropped since January, when 42% of the respondents said they had no interest in the soccer championship tournament.
Brazil, a five-time world champion, is one of the favourites to win the 2018 World Cup and is seeking redemption following its humiliating 7-1 loss to Germany in the semi-finals while hosting the 2014 World Cup.
Consumer enthusiasm down
In a related development, only 24% of consumers surveyed plan to buy World Cup related products over the next few weeks, well below the 50.1% who spent money on the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, according to the results of a survey released Monday by the Brazilian Business Confederation.
“In addition to there naturally being less enthusiasm among the people for a World Cup played abroad, the situation among consumers is less favorable in 2018 than it was four years ago,” Brazilian Business Confederation economic unit chief Fabio Bentes said in a statement.
Brazil’s economy contracted 3.5 per cent in 2015, the worst performance in 25 years, and another 3.5 per cent in 2016, marking the first time since 1931 that the gross domestic product (GDP) fell for two consecutive years, Efe reported.
Even though Brazil has started recovering from the severe recession, households are still struggling with low purchasing power and high unemployment, Bentes said.
The trade group, however, said it was still a good sign for businesses that one in four Brazilian consumers planned to spend money on products linked to the World Cup.
“Despite the fact that the country already put the recession behind it, the recovery in the economy and consumer spending contiues to be slow and subject to fluctuations,” Bentes said.
The trade group surveyed 18,000 people across Brazil.
Some 51.6% of respondents said they planned to spend a maximum of 200 reais (about $52.60) on World Cup merchandise, while 39.2% of respondents said they would spend up to 300 reais ($78.90).
