RIO DE JANEIRO — Lucas Bazan Pontoni rifled through his pockets for
the 45-cent lunch fee as he stood in line at a downtown soup
kitchen. When he came up short, an acquaintance sprang for the
government-subsidized meal.
One of about 160,000 Argentines who flooded into Brazil for the
World Cup, Pontoni hardly fits the image of deep-pocketed
foreigners who dropped around $3 billion in Brazil during the
monthlong tournament. The 23-year-old actor is broke, and he has no
immediate plans to return home almost two weeks after Germany beat
Argentina in the July 13 final.
"Brazil is amazing, and I want to stay," said Pontoni, who had been
camping out in Rio's Sambadrome Carnival parade grounds, lunching
at soup kitchens and searching for an odd job to cover bus fare to
see northern Brazil. "It could be weeks or months or longer. I'm
going to see where life and the road take me."
Local media reports say tens of thousands of Argentine fans remain
in the country. They appear to be overwhelmingly young and male:
Most are in their 20s, and less than a third of them are women.
Brazil's Federal Police did not respond to email and telephone
requests seeking confirmation of how many Argentines are still
here. But the prospect of a large number of foreigners selling
handicrafts, juggling at intersections for handouts or relying on
government social services for poor Brazilians has officials
worried.
Although Brazil's once-gangbuster economy has slowed in recent
years, the situation is far better than that in crisis-wracked
Argentina, which has a shortage of dollars and one of the world's
highest inflation rates.
Antonio Pedro Figueira de Mello, who heads Rio's tourism promotion
agency, has acknowledged that controls along Brazil's
1,260-kilometer (780-mile) land border with its southern neighbor
may have been too lax during the tournament.
"We were taken by surprise" by the influx of Argentines, the Rio
newspaper O Globo quoted Mello as saying. "In any place in the
world, people have to state where they're going, how much time
they're staying, what resources they have and whether they have
health insurance. That was not done."
Argentines don't need a visa, or even a passport, to visit Brazil.
A government ID card will do.
Mello spoke at the Sambadrome, which was turned into a makeshift
campsite to help accommodate the waves of Argentines who arrived by
car, bus and motorhome during the World Cup. The site was closed
last week, and the last campers were evicted. Media reports said
Argentine consular officials were there to help organize return
transportation for people whose money ran out or whose documents
were lost or stolen, but many reportedly weren't interested in such
help.
The stragglers dress mostly in raggedy shorts, T-shirts and
flip-flops, bathing infrequently at public water fountains or
outdoor showers at the beach. There is no need for warm clothes in
Rio, where the temperatures currently hover around 28 degrees
Celsius (low 80s Fahrenheit).
The Argentines are not the only World Cup fans intent on remaining
in Brazil. Last week, police in the southern state of Rio Grande do
Sul said several hundred fans from the West African nation of Ghana
applied for asylum after coming in on tourist visas to follow their
national team. Brazil is studying the applications.
It could prove much more difficult to control the Argentines,
without any visa requirements.
Following their eviction from the Sambadrome, Pontoni and 10 or so
of his compatriots moved to a nearby park, where they lounged on
the grass with their oversized backpacks. They knotted friendship
bracelets and prepared other handicrafts to hawk on the beach.
"I don't think I'm going back," said 25-year-old Martin Sichero, a
friend of Pontoni. "I came for the World Cup, but now I think I'm
here for good."