1000 days before 2010 World Cup
Posted by Grant Brewer on 23 Oct 2007
With a successful rugby World Cup campaign behind us, I caught sight of [this article][] on [Accelerate Cape Town][] highlighting that there are 1,000 days to go before the FIFA World Cup 2010 kicks off in South Africa -- that leaves very little time for preparations, although it seems from what I hear and read that things are on track.
The article's author, Linton Rensburg has a few interesting comments.
I am worried about how the South African Public [...] are embracing the 2010 phenomena [...] we need to start getting excited now.
That is a good point. One thousand days seems like a lot, but it really isn't much when it comes to projects as big as this. South African's seem to be very good at finding the opportunities for failure, rather than embracing the possibilities. Time to see whether we can reframe our views of the FIFA World Cup.
...as a person who understands the importance of 2010 and what it is bringing to the African Continent in terms of socio-economic benefits, not even to mention the psychological impact, I am worried...
Well, I am also worried although about something different. My worry is about these expections of soci-economic benefits. True, I agree that if the tournament goes well the country will gain psychologically, building confidence in our ability. However, I still can't reconcile the terrific economic benefits that are meant to flow into the country on account of the tournament.
It seems that FIFA has already made its money from the sponsors and TV rights, and South Africa doesn't get its hands on any of that money. So perhaps a million people (at a stretch) will visit the country during the tournament, but many of them will be on a tight budget having saved for ages simply to attend the tournament. So perhaps the world will see highlights of the country on their TV screens and some might actually decide to visit the country whilst others might gain more confidence about doing business with or in South Africa. But is this really going to bring billions in foreign direct investment? Is it really going to recoup the cost in any way other than pride?
I just don't get where the tangible benefit is. The same goes for countries hosting the Olympics and other similar sporting events. It seems that the organisers of these events are onto a great marketing thing -- they make a great deal of money from the TV rights, while selling this idea that it is prestigious and profitable for a country to host the event! Perhaps this is worth exploring sometime in a Strategym column.
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south africa (4) | world cup (3) | 2010 (2) | economics (1)
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