Inside Lines: Road to Rio as hazardous for the Olympic Games as Roy Hodgson's men

New sports minister Helen Grant makes her highest-profile appearance yet when she attends next weekend’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award (Getty)

Brazil's problems in preparing for next year's World Cup are compounded by escalating concerns that the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro two years later are suffering similar setbacks.

World Cup organisers admit that all six of the new stadiums under construction, including the opening-game venue in Sao Paulo where two building workers died last month when a crane collapsed, will not be ready to meet Fifa's deadline.

Now the race to be ready for the 2016 Games is desperate, with International Olympic Committee observers revealing serious doubts over whether venues, transport and accommodation can be finished on schedule. John Coates, the Australian vice-president of the IOC, says the situation "is more of a crisis than Athens". At the 2004 Games some facilities were finished only hours before the opening ceremony.

In Brazil there have been public demonstrations over the cost of staging the massive global events only two years apart and doubts are expressed as to whether the country is actually capable of doing so. The site of the proposed Olympic Park is still an expanse of mud but the area causing most concern is the Diodorus Sports Complex, which will host nine sports. It is 15 months behind schedule, said to be caused by bureaucracy, political indecision and corruption.

Of course traditionally there are always alarmist stories about Games preparations – London being a notable exception – but it does seem that the road to Rio will be as hazardous for the Olympics organisers as it now looks for Roy Hodgson's men.

Question time

New sports minister Helen Grant makes her highest-profile appearance yet when she attends next weekend's BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. However, it is unlikely she will soon find a similar invitation from A Question of Sport dropping on to the ministerial mat after her recent "nil points" response to that embarrassing impromptu quiz.

The former judo champ, thrown by five relatively simple questions (as once was her predecessor Richard Caborn), was on more comfortable territory when visiting boxing HQ in Sheffield last week to meet Olympic golden girl Nicola Adams and discussing how more women can be encouraged to take up sport.

Nationwide there are 1.7 million fewer women participating than men. Some might think that this, and concentrating on assisting sport at a more fundamental grass roots level, are worthier objectives than satisfying the pub quiz anoraks. But we do suggest that if she wants to boost her street cred when mingling with the SPOTY luminaries she'd best mug up on the journey to Leeds.

Josh looks the real deal

It surely can't be more than a year or two before young Anthony Joshua is stepping up to receive the SPOTY trophy himself. So far the Olympic super-heavyweight champion hasn't put a fist wrong in his blossoming pro career and already looks capable of challenging for the British title – vacated last week by David Price – some time next year.

On Saturday the 24-year-old returns to London's Excel to take on Welshman Dorian Darch, his fourth opponent in two months. We've been let down before by aspiring British heavyweight hopes but Big Josh looks the business.

a.hubbard@independent.co.uk