Joedir Belmont, left, and Fifa's Jerome Valcke trade tickets from the 1950 and 2014 World Cup finals at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on June 27, 2014. Belmont, 85, had a ticket for the 1950 World Cup final match between Brazil and Uruguay, but he skipped it to tend to his sick mother. He has offered to donate his unused 1950 ticket for display in Fifa's planned museum at its Zurich headquarters. In return, the football governing body has given him two tickets to this year's World Cup final match. Kyodo
Joedir Belmont, left, and Fifa's Jerome Valcke trade tickets from the 1950 and 2014 World Cup finals at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on June 27, 2014. Belmont, 85, had a ticket for tShow more

World Cup Diary Day 24: Brazil fan’s World Cup final ticket saga



A Brazilian pensioner who was unable to attend the 1950 World Cup trophy match in Rio and donated his carefully preserved ticket to Fifa’s museum has lost his ticket to next Sunday’s final.

Joedir Belmont, 85, had a ticket for Brazil’s loss to Uruguay witnessed by 200,000 people at the Maracana owing to a family illness.

But he kept his ticket and donated it to Fifa’s football museum, who responded by giving him two tickets for this year’s final, secretary general Jerome Valcke handing them over personally.

Belmont had managed to obtain tickets for several games outside Rio for this year’s tournament but not the final, until football’s world body intervened.

Now his dreams of seeing the denouement of the World Cup again may be dashed as he mislaid the tickets on the way home from last week’s ceremony where they had been presented to him, O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported on Friday.

“I kept a ticket for 64 years; I lost the other inside six hours,” the paper quoted Belmont as lamenting.

He said he had reported the loss and Fifa had advised him to wait to see if they show up or else they will re-issue the two tickets he was given and a third he was allowed to buy.

“If my tickets aren’t handed in they have promised to re-issue them – they have my name on,” said Belmont. “My cousins, who are dead now, saw Brazil defeated [in 1950] – but I’m very much hoping that I shall see the Selecao crowned champions.”

TICKETS

For tickets for the two-day Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) event, entitled Dubai Invasion 2019, on September 27 and 28 go to www.meraticket.com.

COMPANY PROFILE

Company: Bidzi

● Started: 2024

● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid

● Based: Dubai, UAE

● Industry: M&A

● Funding size: Bootstrapped

● No of employees: Nine

Singham Again

Director: Rohit Shetty

Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone

Rating: 3/5

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4

Profile Periscope Media

Founder: Smeetha Ghosh, one co-founder (anonymous)

Launch year: 2020

Employees: four – plans to add another 10 by July 2021

Financing stage: $250,000 bootstrap funding, approaching VC firms this year

Investors: Co-founders

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Revibe%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202022%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hamza%20Iraqui%20and%20Abdessamad%20Ben%20Zakour%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Refurbished%20electronics%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunds%20raised%20so%20far%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%2410m%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFlat6Labs%2C%20Resonance%20and%20various%20others%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Thank You for Banking with Us

Director: Laila Abbas

Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum

Rating: 4/5

HOW%20TO%20ACTIVATE%20THE%20GEMINI%20SHORTCUT%20ON%20CHROME%20CANARY
%3Cp%3E1.%20Go%20to%20%3Cstrong%3Echrome%3A%2F%2Fflags%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E2.%20Find%20and%20enable%20%3Cstrong%3EExpansion%20pack%20for%20the%20Site%20Search%20starter%20pack%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E3.%20Restart%20Chrome%20Canary%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E4.%20Go%20to%20%3Cstrong%3Echrome%3A%2F%2Fsettings%2FsearchEngines%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20in%20the%20address%20bar%20and%20find%20the%20%3Cstrong%3EChat%20with%20Gemini%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20shortcut%20under%20%3Cstrong%3ESite%20Search%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E5.%20Open%20a%20new%20tab%20and%20type%20%40%20to%20see%20the%20Chat%20with%20Gemini%20shortcut%20along%20with%20other%20Omnibox%20shortcuts%20to%20search%20tabs%2C%20history%20and%20bookmarks%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
What is graphene?

Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.

It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.

It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.

It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.

Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.

The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.

The Buckingham Murders

Starring: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ash Tandon, Prabhleen Sandhu

Director: Hansal Mehta

Rating: 4 / 5

Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press

Joker: Folie a Deux

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson

Director: Todd Phillips 

Rating: 2/5


Middle East Today

The must read newsletter for the region

      By signing up, I agree to The National's privacy policy
      Middle East Today