World Cup Diary | World Cup diary: Lifetime doesn't mean lifetime when Fifa is involved
Football's governing body essentially guffawed in the faces of 3,000 owners of special tickets at the Maracana who thought they would get into the tournament for free
'Perpetuity' - "the state or quality of lasting forever" according to Oxford. But some Brazilians have found that, as with a lot of things where Fifa is concerned, even dictionary definitions are not straightforward.
Businessman Luis Meyer Blumberg owns one of around 3,000 lifetime passes to the Maracana stadium which were issued to raise money when the iconic Rio arena was first built. Stamped "special seat in perpetuity", it entitles the bearer to entry to any event there.
Unless Fifa decides otherwise.
Good thing they weren't around in Willy Wonka's world or all the golden tickets would have gone to marketing vice-presidents at Budweiser and Visa.
“For what this piece of plastic is worth today I could virtually have bought an apartment a few years ago. Just a shame it can’t get me a World Cup seat,” Blumberg told AFP.
