A poll published Sunday on the wealth and race of fans who attended a World Cup match in Brazil showed those attending games are overwhelmingly white and rich, according to The Associated Press.
Brazil's population is reportedly highly mixed with more blacks than any country with the exception of Nigeria, the AP reported. More than half of Brazil's population self-identified themselves as black or of mixed-race in the 2010 census.
A Datafolha polling group survey published in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper showed that at Saturday's Brazil vs Chile match, 67 percent of attendees classified themselves as white and 90 percent came from Brazil's top two economic classes, which represent about 15 percent of the country's population, according to the AP.
The Datafolha poll was based on interviews with 693 fans at the Mineirao stadium in Belo Horizonte and had a statistical margin of error of 4 percentage points, the AP reported.
"Sure, there are only whites in the stadium. It comes down to money," said Ana Beatriz Ferreira, a 27-year-old parking attendant in Rio de Janeiro, who is black, according to the AP. "Nobody I know could find affordable tickets."
The billions spent to build new or upgrade existing football stadiums both raised public ire about how the money was spent and has already caused ticket prices for Brazilian national soccer league matches to rise sharply, the AP reported.
Some fans complain that's turned what were once affordable, raucous stadium experiences in Brazil into more costly and less spontaneous visits to storied stadiums like Rio's Maracana, according to the AP.
Face-value prices for the Brazil vs Chile match officially ranged from $200 to $25 for Brazilians, the cheapest tickets making up roughly 5 percent of those sold, the AP reported. They were only available for students, senior citizens or poor people who participate in a government welfare program.
The prices are tough for ordinary Brazilians to afford due to factors like the minimum wage of $330 a month, according to the AP.
In an emailed statement, FIFA said that during group stage matches, it sold a total of 143,364 of the cheapest tickets, which amounted to roughly 3,000 such tickets available per match, the AP reported. Those quickly sold out, locking out the vast majority of fans in soccer-mad Brazil.
Marcos Carvalho, an 18-year-old Brazilian fan who was hanging out near the Estadio Nacional in Brasilia before Brazil played Cameroon earlier this week, said that he "didn't even try getting tickets, they were too expensive," according to the AP. "There was no way we could afford them. We'll just watch the match at home, it's all we can do. We are seeing everyone going to the stadium, everyone happy, but we won't be going."
