KEIR RADNEDGE at DEAD SEA: Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup will be an important ‘test bed’ for Rio de Janeiro’s staging of the Olympic Games in two years’ time, according to a Sports Ministry expert.

Pitagoras Dytz, a legal adviser to the ministry, was addressing the Soccerex Asian Forum on the comparative challenge of hosting the two greatest global sports events within two years.

Already Brazil has come under heavy pressure from both world football federation FIFA and the International Olympic Committee over shortcomings in preparations.

Dytz said: “The World Cup and the Olympic Games are very different but what they do have in common is an opportunity to show off the country and for the country to rise to a challenge.

“At the same time, if things don’t go right at the World Cup it will be something to learn for the Olympic Games in 2016. It is not a worry but an opportunity for observation to know what we are doing correctly.

“We have to meet all the expectation of what was planned and then learn and not make the same mistakes in the Olympic Games.

“Of course, doing the World Cup work correctly would be very important to because that we will show the Olympic people what we can do.”

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