"In their statement, issued on the cancellation of the Soccerex Global Convention 2013, the Government of Rio de Janeiro wrongly seeks to absolve itself of its responsibilities with respect to the funding of the event," Soccerex said in a statement.

"It has referred to an alleged failure by Soccerex to secure investment for the event through the Sports Incentive Law, and therefore attempted to apportion blame via this avenue, as opposed to the civil unrest and resulting public pressure as cited to Soccerex by the Rio Government."

The Soccerex Global Convention was due to be held in Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã Stadium from November 30 until December 5

The Rio de Janeiro State Government insisted they had pulled the plug on the event, not because of security concerns, but due to the organisers being unable to raise the funds needed to stage the event and instead wanted local authorities to foot the bill.

Soccerex fiercely deny the claims insisting that, "in signing the Host City contract for the four editions of the Convention, the State Government committed to make substantial contributions to the event."

"Therefore, any reference to 'recommendation' for Soccerex to use the Sports Incentive Law is a smokescreen.

"The Sports Incentive Law is a tax reinvestment system for companies based in Rio - and, since responsibility for the costs mentioned above ​​was contractually assumed by the Government since 2010, under the same administration of Governor Sérgio Cabral, this would have still been their sole responsibility."

The statement also accused the State Government of "disregarding its contractual obligations" towards the Soccerex Global Convention, claiming it is unacceptable that it "is still looking to deliberately mislead public opinion on the subject."

Soccerex insists its conference will not go ahead due to "the Rio Governments unilateral decision to cancel due to civil unrest" following a number of violent protests



"With regards to the speculation that the cost of the Maracanã as the event venue was the cause of the event cancellation, we can categorically deny that this was the case," Soccerex said in its statement.

"The securing of the event venue was also the contractual obligation of the Rio Government.

"Despite the Rio Government's implication that Soccerex's failure to obtain funding was the primary reason for the cancellation, this was not the case yet we felt that it must be addressed along with the media speculation regarding the Maracanã.

"We hope that the above evidences that Soccerex did not contribute to the cancellation of the Global Convention scheduled for next month, and we wish to reiterate that the chief concern cited to us in this situation was the political concern with regard to the social reaction to the Rio Government's ongoing support for our event."

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