As for the author of this article, check your facts, FOOL!! Colombia is nowhere near the country it used to be 12 years ago, with killing rates going down a 75% during the last 8 years, 95% of kiddnaping has dropped, and Colombia’s cities and roads are almost terrorist-activity free. I think it is rather an insult to say that they cannot host the WC because of violence. Back in 86 they were offered the tournament (with Pablo Escobar, drugs, guerrilla and paramilitary problems)and no one said a word about how wrong would that be. They hosted the Coup America in 2001 and there were no hostilities against the visitors neither agains the players and delegations. In fact, they all claimed they felt safe. And now just recently they hosted the South American olympic games with a worderful show(that had nothing to envy the one in Beijing, or Sydney)and the delegations once again, felt safe and welcomed by the people and the city. I suggest you visit Colombia instead, because it sounds like you’ve never been there. These kinds of biased articles are the ones that ruin a nation’s hard effort to move on and succeed. You should be ashamed of yourself for such an empty and idiotic article.

Bogota’s more dangerous than Washington, Detroit and Chicago. The problem with IUS cities? Very narrow boundaries around comparitively ghettoized central cores which have large moving populations = artificially high murder rates. The experts know this and recommend using metropolitan area stats for the US especially.

Chicago city has a lower murder rate than Bogota anyway I didn’t get that one at all, and Bogota may also be more violent thatn Sao Paulo and Mexico City there’s a lot of silly comparisons just being thrown about here.

As far as Latin America I’d only put Venezuela and possible Brazil ahead of Colombia – and it’s a LOT more dangerous than Mexico. Not only thast the murder rates’ rebounding with Medellin fast beconming the world’s murder capital again with Cali not far behind. The current government are increasingly mired in a n appalling list of human rights violations – it really is shocking you might get fooled by some of the comments I recommend unbiased people to read up. It’s a joke. Murderers are consistently let off the hook like the football player and soldiers who’ve murdered poor people from Bogota slums that nobody cares about while dressing them up as dead guerillas.

We need to stop pretending Colombia is miraculously safe, especially as much of the’peace’ it experienced in recent years in places like Medellin was simply down to paramilitaries taking over the city and enforcing a police-like state. Not innocent at all though I guess it’s alright if you’re some rich kid who’s safer from the crime and has regular internet access and possibly lives in another country anyway. The poor of Colombia? WHO CARES??

The articles slightly off. Only slightly.

Bogota’s more dangerous than Washington, Detroit and Chicago. The problem with IUS cities? Very narrow boundaries around comparitively ghettoized central cores which have large moving populations = artificially high murder rates. The experts know this and recommend using metropolitan area stats for the US especially.

Chicago city has a lower murder rate than Bogota anyway I didn’t get that one at all, and Bogota may also be more violent thatn Sao Paulo and Mexico City there’s a lot of silly comparisons just being thrown about here.

As far as Latin America I’d only put Venezuela and possible Brazil ahead of Colombia – and it’s a LOT more dangerous than Mexico. Not only thast the murder rates’ rebounding.

We need to stop pretending Colombia is miraculously safe, especially as much of the’peace’ it experienced in recent years in places like Medellin was purely down to paramilitaries taking over the city and enforcing a police-like state. Not innocent at all.

The articles slightly off, only slightly.

Please do your research before bashing on a Country that has come a long way from its “dark ages”. I suggest you look at Colombia’s economic development, increase in safety and fight against corruption before going out on a limb and crush with your statements an entire nation.

I am not denying that Colombia has internal conflicts or a high murder per capita ratio, but Colombia is a lot more than the media stereotyped guerrilla war and drug trafficking. Yes, there is still armed conflict going on in the south of the country and yes there are pockets of violence in other parts of the country. BUT, the cities (where the games will be played and the fans and players will stay) have become as safe as many other third world country cities. (its not fair to compare a third world country with a developed nation).

So, I suggest you take a trip to Colombia and actually experience what it is like before you go your way of bashing something you do not know.

PS: I can think of many countries (and many sports) where a player has returned to the “field” after being accused of a crime. “American Football” comes to mind…

And I think Matilda hit the tone of this quite nicely.