HBO’s Jon Frankel Voiceover: If you want to go hunting for Olympic white elephants, well, this is the place to be: Athens, Greece. The Olympics were born here, so when they returned in 2004, the country was flush with national pride. But today, ten years later, pride has turned to shame, as white elephants, which can be spotted all over this sprawling city, stand as giant reminders of incompetence and waste.

We asked Spyros Capralos, the president of the Greek Olympic Committee, how their long-term plans could’ve gone so wrong. Turns out they didn’t have any.

FRANKEL: “Was there a plan for the Olympic venues after the Games?”

CAPRALOS: “No, there was no plan.”

FRANKEL: “No plan?”

CAPRALOS: “Nobody had thought about the post-Games usage of the facilities. And this together with not having more temporary facilities was the biggest problem of Athens.”

During the preparations for the Athens Olympics, Rena Dourou was a member of the opposition party in Greece and one of her country’s few critics of Olympic spending.

FRANKEL: “What’s the legacy of these Olympic games that took place in 2004?”

DOUROU: “Bitterness.”

FRANKEL: “Bitterness?”

DOUROU: “Yup.  To all of us.”

In Brazil, a massive buildup to accommodate the upcoming World Cup (2014) and the looming Summer Olympics (Rio 2016) is in high gear.

Brazil’s economy… once sizzling hot… is now ice cold… and untold millions live in Third World poverty. But undeterred, the government is about to spend more money on a World Cup than any country in history… and worry about tomorrow… tomorrow.

Frankel Voiceover: When the World Cup gets underway in Brazil in June, the United States team will play its second game here in the city of Manaus in this brand new $270 million stadium. The question is: who’s going to play here after the Cup? Because Manaus isn’t a soccer-crazy metropolis, but rather an isolated way station in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of miles of jungle.

So remote is Manuas that you can’t get there by car… which is why officials had to have materials for the stadium shipped across the Atlantic from Portugal… and up the Amazon River… all for four World Cup Games. We asked the man in charge of the project, Miguel Capobiango, what they were thinking.

FRANKEL:  “If somebody said to you, ‘Let’s spend $270 million to build a stadium’ and they’re going to play just four games there, does that make sense?”

MIGUEL CAPOBIANGO (translated from Portuguese): “We understand that the most important thing is the visibility that the TV cameras will bring to the city which will provide a tourist increase and an investment increase.”

CHRIS GAFFNEY:  “How do people find out about all these things?  About the business opportunities, about the tourism by watching football?  That’s the disconnect for me is that watching a football match doesn’t tell you anything about the city.”

Chris Gaffney is an American… but he’s found himself one of the leaders of the marches here in Rio’s Cinelandia Square. A former soccer player turned college professor, he came here in 2009 for his dream job… to write and teach about the World Cup… but since then his excitement like that of millions of Brazilians has turned to rage

GAFFNEY:  “ ‘I give up the World Cup. I want my money for health care and education.’  And I think that if you ask most Brazilians where should public money should be spent, I think they would say health care and education and not football stadiums.”

Meantime… down in the heart of Rio… another $500 million has been poured into this soccer palace… called the Maracana. Luciani Generoso has a great view of the place… from the desperate slum where she lives.

FRANKEL: “Living here and seeing that stadium right there, how does that make you feel?”.”

LUCIANI GENOROSO (translated from Portuguese): “It makes me feel terrible.  They spend so much money on things that are not really necessary instead of spending money on things that people really need like health care, it is outrageous.”

FRANKEL: “I take it you’d be much happier if the World Cup and the Olympics never came to Brazil.”

LUCIANI GENOROSO (translated from Portuguese): “I would. For sure.  They’re spending people’s money to build stadiums.  Things are not getting better. All they’re doing is wasting our money.”

Adding insult to injury… after 70 years of living here in this neighborhood, Generoso’s family is about to be forced out. She has been told her home will soon be cleared for Olympic construction.

CHRIS GAFFNEY: “The Cup’s already a failure.  There’s no way the World Cup can be positive.  And I can’t see how the Olympics will be different from that experience. This is just the way it works, and this is the model that needs to change.  And so it’s not surprising.  It’s sick, but it’s not surprising.”