Brazil sounds like a dream location for football fans to host the World Cup after next. Samba nights. Kids playing barefoot on the beaches. A true festival of the beautiful game. And it surely will be Brazil: earlier this week, FIFA’s inspection group’s report affirmed that “It would be appropriate to choose Brazil as the host nation for the 2014 World Cup.”

Brian Homewood, however, thinks the choice is a gamble.

Stadiums, none of which currently meet World Cup standards, and soaring crime waves are also major worries, but transport could be the real headache. Air travel will be the only viable way to ferry teams and supporters around the vast nation given the huge distances, decaying highways and absence of rail transport. An overland journey from Rio de Janeiro to Manaus, for example, would take 60 hours on a bus to Belem followed by several days on a boat down the Amazon river.

Homewood thinks Brazil may be more of a gamble than South Africa 2010.  Still, I’m sure most of us would kill to be there.

Photo by clairvoyent on Flickr.