There is something about the FIFA World Cup that makes countries try and put on a bigger and more colourful show then those countries that came before them. Each time every four years a new country hosts the tournament, money is pumped into the venues and celebrities are enlisted to endorse the event at every turn.
Each country tries to outdo everyone else that has come before them. There is just something about the football World Cup that inspires countries to go a little mad when it is their turn to host it.
What would be cool to see is if a country goes all out mental and bankrupts itself in trying to set up the biggest World Cup ever. Imagine if the World Bank or the IMF had to bail it out and when they asked for the reason it turned out to be showboating and extravagant waste of money. Now that would be a conversation to hear; the exchange between the chief economist of the host of the World Cup and a representative from the IMF would be priceless.
At least the IMF person would know that it was all for a good cause and in the end would probably bail them out. What better cause is there to get bankrupt over than football? Many people have done exactly that in the past by betting their life’s savings on a football match and losing it all at once in a spectacularly fail fashion.
This article was inspired because of a story on the BBC News website that was regarding how extra money was needed to ensure the World Cup venues were ready. “The man running the 2010 World Cup for Fifa has admitted an extra £67m ($100m) had to be injected into the project to ensure hosts South Africa were ready. Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke told BBC Sport the game's governing body signed off the 25% increase at an executive committee meeting in March. He said the extra money was required to help the South Africans ensure team training camps were ready. South Africa's organisational budget has now swelled from £282m to £349m. But Valcke insisted Fifa's £2.1bn income from the tournament would more than cover the overall increase in its budget, which includes the South African allocation, from £733m to £800m,” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8674024.stm).
What is very interesting about that statement above is that £67 million is a lot of money for the average person; ok it isn’t a lot when seen from a country’s perspective but is still a sizable amount of money. The amount of money that is flying around from this tournament is phenomenal; Fifa is expected to generate £2.1 billion from this World Cup. This amount of money is to be earned even after the budgetary increase by 25% by this latest allocation of funds to the organisers in South Africa. It always seemed that football is the world’s most popular sport but if any organisation can raise £2.1 bn from a tournament it must be doing something right.
South Africa itself is set to receive a hefty cash injection from hosting the tournament as well. It is set to earn £800 million which has been increased after the budgetary increase was approved. So basically SA gets to host the tournament, gets a boatload of tourists coming into the country who will spend a significant amount of money and boost the economy, get a budget approval and get the amount of money received increased as a result of it.
Now that is a sweet deal. If we add into all this the prestige and excitement that comes with hosting the football World Cup, we can see why so many countries around the world are clambering to host the tournament every four years. It is a great deal, Fifa pays you to host it and the country gets a great deal of publicity and tourism in the process. Now it is a little more apparent why so many countries try to outdo each other in order to have the greatest World Cup ever? They have to make sure that they can live up to people’s expectations and also be in the running to host it again sometime in the future and be able to earn some serious money and a reputation boost again and again.
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