The overall price of the 12 stadiums, four of which critics say will become white elephants after the tournament because they are in cities that cannot support them, has jumped to $4.2 billion in nominal terms, nearly four times the estimate in a 2007 FIFA document published just days before Brazil was awarded the tournament. At the time, leaders also promised the stadiums would be privately funded.
"There's collusion of the Brazilian governmental elite with the business elite, and the game is rigged in their favor," said Christopher Gaffney, a professor at Rio's Federal University whose research focuses on the country's preparations for the World Cup and 2016 Olympics. "This was an opportunity to make a lot of money and that's what's happened."
Andrade Gutierrez, which was awarded stakes in contracts totaling nearly one-fourth of the Cup's total price tag, contributed $73,180 in 2008 municipal elections. Four years later, after it was known which cities were hosting Cup matches and thus which political parties controlled the local governments that awarded and are overseeing Cup projects, the company's political contributions totaled $37.1 million.
The 500-fold increase in Andrade Gutierrez's political spending far outpaced the overall 84-percent jump in corporate campaign contributions between the same two elections.
It was in 2010, in between those two elections, that Andrade Gutierrez won bids to build or renovate four stadiums.
The political contributions of Brazil's top builder, Odebrecht, also had a 127-fold increase between those two elections - from $90,909 in 2008 to $11.6 million in 2012. It also won four stadium contracts worth billions along with a much-criticized contract to operate Rio de Janeiro's Maracana stadium for 35 years.
Rio state prosecutors have asked a court to force the renegotiation of the contract. They accuse the government of handing over a sweetheart deal to the Odebrecht consortium, which also includes the firms IMX of Brazil tycoon Eike Batista and Los Angeles-based entertainment giant AEG.
The consortium will pay the government about $2 million a year - but prosecutors point out that doesn't even cover the $13.5 million a year the state must pay to service its 15-year loan to build the stadium.
In emailed statements, both Andrade Gutierrez and Odebrecht noted that their donations were legal under Brazilian law. They didn't respond to questions about why their contributions had spiked so markedly in recent elections.
The donations are virtually impossible to link directly to candidates.
That's because nearly all the money was given to national parties and thrown into a single pot for them to distribute, obscuring ties between corporations and specific politicians.
In March, Brazil's top electoral court mandated that money given by national party committees to candidates must indicate who originally gave the money to the committee.
And more changes are coming.
A majority of justices on the country's Supreme Court voted last month to ban future corporate political donations, citing corruption fears. A single justice demanded to delay a final vote, meaning the reform won't take effect for months, after the Cup is over.
Corporate money in elections raises red flags in many nations, but it is especially serious in Brazil because the vast majority of campaigns are funded by corporations.
In the last presidential elections, over 98 percent of campaign funds for both President Dilma Rousseff and her challenger Jose Serra came from big business, according to Transparency International's Brazil branch.
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Bent Flyvbjerg, a professor at Oxford's Said Business School and one of the globe's foremost experts on global sports events, said that when countries opt to host them they're "basically writing a blank check."
"Often people are late on these projects and the only thing they can do is throw money at them," Flyvbjerg said. "It's the only way to get them done."
Construction companies know the events must be held on specific dates, which gives them leverage. The closer they get to that date and the more behind schedule preparations are, the more revenue they'll make - and FIFA says it's not seen any nation in the last four decades that's been further behind on Cup preparations than Brazil.
Political pressure makes it worse. Few nations have portrayed the World Cup in a more transformative light than Brazil.
In 2010, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with officials from the 12 host cities, who promised to deliver ambitious works to fix Brazil's woeful public transportation system. Silva told those gathered that they weren't just making a commitment, but "signing a treaty before the Brazilian people that we'll not only host the World Cup, but the best World Cup."
With charges about misspent money flying, and few public transportation works in sight, many feel the nation blew its chance to make real advances.
Outside the stadium in Brasilia, security guard Paulo Rodrigues sought the shade of a jackfruit tree in the arena's parking lot on a recent afternoon. He smoked a cigarette down to the filter then used it to point up at the massive arena.
"That's a monument to national sadness and waste," he said. "I'm not against the Cup, but I'm frustrated with the spending and the corruption we all know it involves. When politicians build a road, even if there are kickbacks, at least at the end we have a road. With this stadium, we have nothing."
