The Amazonas state government "decided to delay the privatization of the Arena Amazônia," which was "planned for November of this year," according to Vinícius Segalla of UOL. An Amazonas state representative responsible for the administration of the stadium announced that the arena's operations "would only move on to a privatization initiative after the 2016 Olympic Games." The process of privatizing the Arena Amazônia, being one of stadiums chosen to host 2016 Olympic football, "would get in the way of preparing the space for the Games." As a result, debt generated by the stadium, paid by the state government, "should go beyond" R$10M ($3.1M) in addition to the R$750M it has already spent on the arena's construction. This is also considering the fact that Amazonas' clubs "already stated they did not plan on using the arena for most of their games," as the option was not "economically viable." However, Olympic Village Foundation (FVO) President Aly Almeida said the state "would not pass up any financial compensation to the private entity that will be responsible for maintaining the stadium." Almeida: "We won't pass up appropriation to the future operator, on the contrary, we want to privatize in a way that lays out the division between the State and the investor the eventual profits that the arena is likely to generate" (UOL, 3/18).
