Kevin McKenna: When it comes to extolling inequality, the Olympics has no competition

For the photographer to have got these shots he must have been invited into the homes of these people as they pressed their noses against the window of another cash-swollen, self-indulgent carnival for the indolent middle classes.

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The entire monthly household income for one of these families would barely have covered the cost of obtaining one of the golden tickets for the Olympics opening ceremony.

For a second time in three years a grotesque millionaires’ bacchanal had pitched its tented palaces in the midst of their poverty and mocked them as they stood watching.

And, for a second time in three years, they were not invited. At the World Cup in 2014 many of them had taken to the streets to protest at the expense of hosting a football tournament for the richest sports stars on the planet.

In their wake had come an army of supporters with the sort of disposable income that permits them to party for two weeks on another continent. And, presiding over it all: the Fifa Sanhedrin, comprising thousands of the most corrupt men in global sport.

The protests that met those attending the 2014 World Cup had actually been going on for several months. It wasn’t just the multi-billion pound cost of the thing in a country that is the third most unequal (the gap between rich and poor) in the world. Vital building and transport infrastructure projects which had already been delayed by years were shelved and cancelled to make way for a World Cup that draped itself across all the major cities of this massive country.

Entire neighbourhoods were cleansed of their human inhabitants to make way for the circus. Their recompense represented a fraction of the true cost of upheaval and re-location. Those who put up a struggle were forcibly removed at the end of guns being brandished by a police force which had become an armed militia for the purposes of World Cup enforcement. The families of those poorly-paid workers who died constructing stadiums where concern for health and safety was non-existent were made to wait for their paltry pay-outs.

Many poor Brazilians had consoled themselves they’d be able to cash in on the temporary Klondyke being brought by a million rich Europeans. Instead, they were hustled out of sight at the behest of the footballing authorities which moved to shut down anyone who hadn’t paid the exorbitant licensing fees for permission to sell anything even remotely linked with the World Cup.

Fifa, you see, is a travelling global super-state which suspends and then displaces the government of the day and the processes of law and order for the duration of their stay. Governments readily acquiesce in this medievalism because they thirst to be associated with Beautiful Game.

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The XXXI Olympiad in Rio has been only slightly less avaricious. The favela-dwellers are still not welcome at the party in their city, of course and the world’s richest companies still attach themselves to the body like succubi.

The Olympic teams all carry the endorsements of big businesses seeking to be associated with the young and the healthy; the vibrant and the successful. It’s what capitalism does best. The poor, the sick, the elderly and the infirm are all excluded.

Down in the athletes’ village another form of inequality materialises every four years. Once, they really were all in it together, celebrating each other’s triumphs; making new and lasting friendships and exulting in the joy of representing their countries at the highest level.

Many of them, though, are professionals now and the richest no longer deign to gather with their fellow Olympians. "Strict" training schedules forbid these chosen few to gather in the village for they have become personalities and highly marketable units and so must preserve the sense they are "winners" and not there merely making up the numbers for that could seriously damage the "perception".

When it’s all finished the cost of the Olympics will have reached beyond £12 billion, more than 50 per cent over budget. This will have included all related infrastructure projects. When it was announced in 2009 the Olympics were coming to Rio the country was experiencing something of a boom. In Brazil this means government officials and the corporate interests make lots more money and few people ask questions because the lights are staying on and there are no queues for food. Seven years later the governor of Rio, which has contributed more than a billion to the cost of the Olympics, has had to declare a state of financial emergency and has sought federal support to keep basic services running.

Around 70 per cent of the cost of the Rio Olympics is provided by private money. This is regarded by the capitalist community as a good thing as it alleviates the burden on the state. Perhaps; but the state still pays and the people whose money they use derive no benefits and several disadvantages. On the other hand, the property developers and construction magnates can’t lose and make tens of millions in profits. The people whom they employ to help them make these profits are paid washers; have no employment protection and work in conditions that jeopardise their lives.

Why can’t every Olympiad be handled and produced as well as Britain’s jolly was in 2012? A few weeks ago, as a curtain-raiser to Rio 2016, the BBC produced a documentary detailing how the film director Danny Boyle created the Opening Ceremony for London 2012. This was acclaimed (mainly by Londoners) for having captured the down-to-earth decency of a mild-mannered and reasonable country completely at peace with itself. It was an extended piece of cultural sophistry which depicted all three estates of the realm lying down together in a state of social nirvana. All that was missing was someone dressed up as Dick Van Dyke as a chimney sweep, singing Chim Chim Cher-ee to depict how contented the lower orders all were in 2012 Britain.

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It was, of course, a massive confidence trick; an inspired exercise in propaganda by a state which seized on the opportunity, four years after the economic collapse of the country, to convey to the world that all was well. “Look, we’re still here; still thriving and chaps are still not revolting and still doing as they’re told.” We all lapped it up because, well … we’re British.

Conveniently, we forgot about the foodbanks beginning to scar the fabric of the country and the small businesses going under for want of an extended overdraft by the banks whose greed and corruption caused the financial landslide. And we forgot, as Boyle did, the destruction of the mining industry and the steel industry and the shipbuilding industry to make way for Margaret Thatcher’s new millionaires and a country that, according to Oxfam, is the one of the most unequal in Europe.

Yes, it’s really, really terrible and probably a little bit obscene to host a multi-billion pound sporting extravaganza in a country where so many people live in deprivation and where there is such a wide gap between the rich and the poor. And, four years later, Brazil is doing it too.