What’s The World Cup Worth!

Every four years of waiting, an international stage is set; a showcase of the national superstar and the world cup starts.  Out of all the sports played in the world, there’s the only one called “the beautiful game” by billions of people. There’s a good reason for it, too!  Watching most talented players dashes between the field is like seeing an artist with his paintbrush. The field is a canvas for untold story, conflicts between joy and drama smiles and tears, every game unique. For millions watching, though, the real drama takes place off the field. In the soccer world, you can see difficult situations that served as inspiration for the players.

After all, that being said, ever wondered, what’s the World Cup worth? For some, it is a cash cow to others, a waste of money. Is hosting the tournament worth it? Despite the world cup, those kinds of questions come whenever there is a mega event, besides the big and huge propaganda, some support and some against. It has been like this and it will remain like forever. Generally speaking, an event comes with positive and negative impacts on host communities, including economic, social-cultural, and environmental. Host community residents have grown weary of the financial investments and have demonstrated concerns about increased taxation and cost of living.  Always people have Concerned about the mismanagement of funds and increased taxes. On the one hand, the World Cup will bring impacts and benefits whether temporary or long-lasting, whether direct or indirect to different economic and social segments. On the other hand, it also presents several risks, requiring effective management processes in the public and private sectors for the full flow of benefits to society. Before we deep diving into details let’s see how this work from the beginning.

FIFA is committed to ensuring that its member associations maximize the benefits of bidding for and hosting its Other World Cups, both for the continued global development of the game and the achievement of wider social goals and other benefits. These benefits are usually referred to, in the context of major events, as the ‘legacy’.

Some of the benefits experienced by host countries of FIFA competitions include:

• A catalyst for new and improved facilities to support the development of the game at all levels
• Increased number of and higher quality football development programs for both the elite game, talent identification and grassroots
• Increased cooperation and goodwill between the various stakeholders – the member association, the government and other bid stakeholders such as the bid host cities, commercial partners, the media and the community at large
• Increased civic pride and community empowerment as groups of stakeholders get to contribute to and support the bid, together with new skills and training for those involved in delivering the event
• Enhanced partnerships and greater commercial activity and investment from new sponsors, media, broadcasters and large corporations
• Help in breaking down social barriers to participation and high performance by both women and young people
• Using successful players as role models to encourage young and emerging players and to promote health and other social benefits
• Some of the benefits experienced by previous hosts are described in a series of case studies.
• While winning a bid is the ultimate goal, the bidding process can also have real value in its own right.

The bid processes are defined by the following key milestones:

• FIFA sends out requests for expressions of interest
• MAs express an interest in bidding for a specific event
• FIFA sends outbidding information, including the Bidding Manual and supporting documents (Hosting Agreement etc.)
• FIFA workshop for interested bidders
• MAs return the Bidding Agreement confirming compliance with bid requirements
• MAs submit bids in accordance with the Bidding Manual
• FIFA evaluates the bid submissions and identifies the selected candidate for approval.
• FIFA recommendation
• FIFA announces the successful host for the event

There is also value in the World Cup for FIFA it is the principal revenue earner for football’s world governing body. While many will question the ethics and morality of such revenue growth, FIFA would no doubt counter by emphasizing that in 2013, the organization spent US$183m on development projects. The mention would no doubt be made too that this year’s World Cup winners will earn US$35m from a victory in the final. FIFA’s official commercial partners should be happy as well. In the run-up to the last tournament in South Africa, Adidas sold 6m football shirts, up from 3m in Germany 2006. Similarly, Visa’s 2010 World Cup YouTube channel was viewed 7.5m times, 50 percent more than it was expecting. In short, there is a seductive argument that says: “the World Cup is worth a lot”.

Yet, the question remains, what’s the World Cup worth? Let’s see how people think about this!

For some people bidding for hosting the World Cup is a waste of resources; others argue it is the opposite According to some who have studied the value of international sporting events to a country’s economy, it’s remarkable that top government officials around the world go to such great lengths to host events that prove enormously expensive and don’t deliver the benefits that organizers promise. On a financial study and aspect of international sports, it shows the effect of the World Cup on South Africa’s economy. They concluded that the increase in tourism in South Africa wasn’t worth the cost of building the stadiums for the tournament. About 300,000 additional tourists traveled to South Africa in 2010, they found, but South Africa spent some $3.9 billion building new facilities. Most of those stadiums are no longer in use. In order for the tournament to have been worthwhile, the tourists would have had to have spent an average of $13,000 each while they were in South Africa. That’s unlikely, particularly since any money they spent on tickets for matches would have gone to FIFA, not the local economy. hosting an event such as the World Cup or the Olympics improves a country’s reputation, which brings in more business. Economists have found some evidence for this argument, but simply placing a bid on a major tournament seems to do just as much as hosting one for a country’s exporters.

Even participating in the bidding process might be good the attention surrounding the bid might lead to more international factory orders, while the country avoids having to pay to build more stadiums.

Another argument for major worldwide sporting events is that they can unify a city or a nation around a shared goal, creating the political support for spending money on roads, hotels, hospitals, trains and other important projects. the nature of mega sporting events. These things aren’t economic stimulus programs. They aren’t infrastructural legacy projects with tangible societal benefits.

“The things you need for a soccer tournament are almost never the things you need for daily life.”

Brazil, and South Africa, (the most recent hosts), another nation with developing economies, played host to FIFA in 2010 with similar results. While the tournament itself was successful, the nation, which had enjoyed steady economic growth before becoming a World Cup host, did not receive the economic boost that FIFA promised. Fewer tourists arrived than were expected, and economic growth actually slowed in South Africa during the month of the tournament. Wasteful spending abounded, as the country spent $1.48 billion on the construction of five new stadiums, and renovation of five existing ones, most of which are far too large for typical non-World Cup event and games. In response to South Africa’s misplaced fiscal priorities, thousands of disenfranchised citizens protested the Cup. Similar to Brazil and its ongoing struggle with its favelas, South Africa drew negative international attention by imposing mass evictions and displacing slum-dwellers who lived near the FIFA action.

Prior to pursuing prestige as World Cup hosts, both Brazil and South Africa appeared ready to step up and perform on the international stage. There’s no way to know for sure whether FIFA’s demands directly caused each nation’s ensuing economic downturns or the pressures of hosting a truly massive event simply exposed existing fiscal turmoil. It is clear, however, that nation with developing economies do not receive the economic benefits that FIFA promises when they host the Cup. And often times, citizens suffer as their governments spend billions on what amounts to entertainment rather than on more tangible benefits. Rather than being a boon for developing countries, FIFA leaves such nations worse off both financially and socially.

Analysts at Russia’s Gaidar Institute said the World Cup, which will be hosted in 11 cities across the country, could add up to 0.2 percent to annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second and third quarters. But the central bank, which has fought to bring inflation down from double-digit levels to post-Soviet lows, also warned that the tournament could lead to an increase in consumer prices. Russian authorities have already named and shamed hotels caught jacking up room prices ahead of the World Cup, with some increasing nightly rates by as much as 5,000 percent. The central bank, however, still sees Russian inflation below its target of four percent in 2018 and has said it could fall to a record low near two percent in the second quarter.

Generally speaking, after all, no politician hires economists to tell them a tournament or a specific project will be a waste of money. There are also indirect economic and social costs.

In conclusion; after analyzing all factors hosting the world cup cannot bring profits in the short run but is beneficial to the host countries in the long run keeping in mid the real economic factor starts eight years before the event, which means using domestic and foreigner (importing – trade) resources, open a new job market not only for constructions but too many fields will benefit; however,  it works only for those who know what’s management is, who have either strong football competition or developing soccer program, for those who have the standard and quality system to build things right, for those who will maintain and continues on improving what they have built for such event; otherwise it will be waste of energy, time, and money. Conversely; it will never work if the system is corrupted if they mismanagement the fund if they didn’t do the right project such as stadiums, roads, railroads, hospitals, and hotels with the right standards.

The FIFA World Cup is one of the most prestigious sporting mega-events in the world.

At the end of the day, it makes people happy. And there’s actually research that says hosting big sporting events results in a measurable increase in happiness for local populations.