Brazil’s anticipation for the World Cup has begun to reach a fever-pitch, but speculation on the upcoming mega-event deals as much with questions of corruption and incompetence as with the competition itself. Rumors are rife that the Cup will never arrive at all: as recently as a week ago, it was alleged that FIFA would cancel the event due to delays in venue construction and that England was being prepped as an emergency fallback option. There’s also talk in Sao Paulo that FIFA President Sepp Blatter will stay in Argentina for the duration of the tournament due to fears of being targeted by violent protests that have gripped the country in recent months.

While rampant speculation and fear-mongering is nothing new in a lead-up to the World Cup, the worries that have gripped Brazil in the last few weeks are on a different level altogether. When South Africa hosted in 2010, its government was criticized both domestically and abroad due to runaway expenses and numerous delays — but here there is a palatable undercurrent of anger being directed toward the ruling political party, made worse by the continuing protests that killed 10 and wounded more than 600 last year. The most recent riot was less than a month ago after police shot and killed a man they mistook for a drug dealer.

The huge profits reaped by World Cup organizations have had a powerful influence in fuelling discontent. FIFA, which is considered a non-profit organization, has a financial reserve of $1.4 billion in Switzerland. The South African World Cup grossed $2.35 billion in tax-free profits. With numbers like these, it’s not hard to see why Brazil’s poor, who live on around 350$ a month, are up in arms.

One of the biggest headaches for event organizers is the Corinthians Stadium in Sao Paulo. Despite being scheduled to host the Opening Ceremonies on July 13th, the project has lagged months behind projected deadlines and recently scheduled test matches were forced to move to other stadiums. On May 15, the Ministry of Labor of São Paulo threatened to once again ban construction work at the stadium due to laborers working excessive hours in the installation of mobile stands. Construction at the stadium has already been stalled twice for similar reasons. The government is considering moving the Opening Ceremonies 250 miles to the east, to the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

The Maracanã itself was completely rebuilt to host World Cup and was one of the first venues to be ready — but Rio de Janeiro has deeper worries than construction schedules. The city has been beset by a wave of violence, with peacekeeping units installed in the poorer ‘favelas’ in an attempt to contain the violence to those neighborhoods. Areas once considered safe, such as the tourist-friendly Copacabana, are facing a rapid increase in violent crime. Even São Paulo and Porto Alegre, traditionally thought of as more peaceful cities, have shown a rise in crime rates in recent months. Shoot outs between local criminals and law enforcement frequently leave bystanders dead, including tourists.

Security programs initiated by the government have so far been ineffective in protecting its own citizens, and the prospect of tourists facing similar violence has World Cup organizers sweating. FIFA’s efforts to protect visiting foreigners are sometimes resulting in black comedy as it distributes pamphlets warning tourists “not to shout if they are being robbed”. The greatest fear is a combination so common that Brazilians have begun to call it “latrocinio” — robbery, followed by murder.

Across the country, massive government spending on World Cup projects is being contrasted with the decay and neglect of essential public services. Popular anger was recently focused when an unemployed woman, diagnosed with cancer, denounced the government in the press after she was informed by the hospital that she would have to wait up to two years to get an MRI. There are approximately 420 other people in the same hospital awaiting the same procedure. The question of how a country can afford dozens of new stadiums while its health care remains deeply neglected is a continuing point of contention online and in popular media.

When Brazil eventually wakes up from the World Cup frenzy that has gripped the country, the cycle will begin anew as the countdown begins for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Current estimates show that only 10% of the venues are ready, leading Vice President of the International Olympic Committee, Australian John Coates, to say that preparations are the “worst” he’s ever seen in the recent history of the games. By comparison, London was within 60% of the venues being finished for the 2012 Games by this point in the development cycle, and even the poorly-received Athens games had 40% of the venues completed 2 years before the 2004 games.

Within the coming week preparation for the World Cup will be put to test as the first of an estimated 600,000 visitors begin to descend on Brazilian cities. Whether the country will come to regret its offer to host the games remains to be seen.