Social unrest ranks alongside shoddy infrastructure as leading concerns for teams and supporters planning to travel to Brazil for the tournament.

While the country has won the World Cup five times, many Brazilians resent the scale of spending poured into hosting the tournament. Banners carried in the business districts of Sao Paulo proclaimed No rights, No World Cup and Fifa go home.

Despite the popularity of the game, some demonstrators took aim at the earnings of players. Wake up Brazil, a teacher is worth more than [the footballer] Neymar was one slogan.

It is not just the disparity of income between rich footballers and public sector employees that took the brunt of anger. By rights we mean the peoples right to decent public services, said Leonardo Pelegrini dos Santos, a university student. We are against the millions and millions of dollars being spent for the cup. It is money that should be invested in better health and education services and better transportation and housing.

Demonstrators staged a sit-in along a line of lavatory bowls set along Copacabana beach in Rio to highlight that 70 per cent of the citys sewage was untreated before it was dumped in the bay.

The Olympics are coming, the World Cup is coming, its a chance to draw attention and maybe the world can talk about whats happening here in Rio, said Leona Deckelbaum, an activist. To me it is unbelievable that theres not basic sanitation in a city like Rio.

Another pointed out the contrast between the images in tourist brochures and the consequences of lack of city services. Its really dirty. The sand, everything, said Ruth Ferreira.

Separately Brazil has been hit in recent weeks by generalised unrest targeting commercial areas.

Almost a dozen shopping centres in the country have been hit by rolezinhos mobs, composed primarily of young people from slum areas, going on the rampage in upmarket shopping malls in Rio and Sao Paulo.

Dilma Rousseff, the president, has seen her governments popularity hit even as she prepares to open her campaign for re-election in October.

See the rest here:

World Cup riots in Brazil trigger riots and arrests