One is wary of speaking too soon, but at long last it seems the football is taking over in Brazil.

The Netherlands' extraordinary 5-1 demolition of Spain's team of teams - a scoreline that no-one saw coming, outside perhaps Dutch (and soon-to-be Manchester United) coach Louis van Gaal's inner sanctum - was just the sort of result organisers needed to expunge the negative press and lurid images that have dominated the build-up to the tournament for more than a year.

It seems a good time to pause for a minute to take stock of any lessons the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - which, as we know, needs to preside over its own global sporting showcase in Brazil in two years' time - can take from the South American country's imperfect preparations for staging its first World Cup for two generations.

One area where I would think Gilbert Felli, the deeply unflash and hugely experienced IOC official appointed by IOC President Thomas Bach to keep close tabs on preparations, must be asking hard questions is in the field of labour relations.

The possibility of strikes by those working on projects for the Rio 2016 Games, including the Olympic Village pictured in 2012, is one that needs to be dealt with ©AFP/Getty Images



Prestige sports competitions can, of course, make tempting targets for union organisers looking for levers to ratchet up the terms and conditions under which their members provide their labour.

I remember in particular the 1998 World Cup in France, when a pilots' strike went very close to the wire.

Even by those standards though, the tactics deployed by some workers' organisers in Brazil this week, emboldened perhaps by the knowledge that a significant proportion of the population was behind them, would be enough to give any mega-event organiser cold shivers.

First, a threatened strike by São Paulo metro workers, who had only just returned to work, on the day the city was hosting the World Cup's opening match between Brazil and Croatia was averted only at the last moment.

Then some groups of airport workers in Rio de Janeiro, the future Olympic and Paralympic host-city, did actually stage a slowdown and block a road in pursuit of a five per cent pay claim.

Is there a danger that this brand of brinkmanship might now plague the remaining countdown to the 2016 Games, a period in which city, state and national authorities face an unremitting race against the clock to be ready for the supreme logistical challenge that the Olympics represents?

My strong presumption would be that the answer to this is Yes, in which case the question becomes, Is there anything Felli and his colleagues and allies can do about it?

One possible course of action is suggested by an interview I conducted recently with Peter Ueberroth, the man who embodies the unexpected success of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and Paralympics - an event staged in a period when the power of trade unions was a much bigger issue than today, at least over much of the fully-industrialised world.

A deal was put in place well in advance of the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games to ensure strike action did not affect preparations ©Getty Images



What Ueberroth told me was this - "One thing we did that was very important: we went to all the labour unions maybe five years out and negotiated to pay regular, but good, rates and to use union [workers] throughout our activities."

However, "Any strikes would always exclude any Olympic venue and activity.

"Everybody kept their word.

"That was a big piece of comfort and a big part of our success.

"They were very fair with us."

Clearly, Felli and Co no longer have the luxury of five years in which to make their preparations.

But it seems to me that the compressed time-scale only makes the value of such a pact more apparent, particularly when, again, strikers may receive widespread backing in the court of Brazilian public opinion.

The last thing those overseeing, for example, construction at the Deodoro complex need, in a situation when every second counts, is the ever-present threat of workers walking off the job.

The World Cup has become a focus for strikes and protests, and there is no doubt the IOC is watching developments with interest ©Getty Images



Yet the more pressing the deadlines, the bigger the stick that is placed in union leaders' hands.

Perhaps the powers-that-be have already negotiated the sort of deal that Ueberroth outlined and that underpinned Los Angeles 1984's against-the-odds success.

Let us hope this is the case or that, if it isn't, Felli can bang the necessary heads together to produce one covering the remaining period.

The troubled prelude to the decade's first great Brazilian festival of sport would strongly suggest that some protection from the potentially highly damaging consequences of opportunistic but eminently understandable industrial disputes is badly needed.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.