South Africa’s football lesson
By Simon Kuper
Published: October 30 2010 00:31 | Last updated: October 30 2010 00:31
On Sunday Dilma Rousseff will probably be voted president of Brazil. Soon afterwards she should get on her plane and visit the poor South African town of Nelspruit. There she will see the football stadium built for the recent World Cup. It’s barely played in any more, and isn’t much use to the surrounding slum-dwellers. From Nelspruit Rousseff can fly to Cape Town and view the magnificent new stadium beside the Atlantic. That one’s now redundant too. The company supposed to operate it for 30 years just pulled out of the deal, largely because Cape Town doesn’t need another stadium.
Then Rousseff can fly home and revise plans for what should be the most high-profile event of her reign: Brazil’s World Cup of 2014. Brazil can learn from South Africa’s mistakes. So can the countries bidding to host the World Cups of 2018 and 2022. (The winners will be chosen on December 2, unless scandals delay the vote.) Hosts need to understand what a World Cup is: a party. It leaves nothing behind except a hangover, good memories and a large bill.
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Every host of a World Cup or Olympics ritually claims that the tournament will be “an economic bonanza”. South Africa said this nonstop, and Orlando Silva Jr, Brazil’s charming sports minister, made the usual noises when I caught him over breakfast in Johannesburg during the last World Cup. “I guess that the Cup has been a stimulus for developing infrastructure here, and we will follow the same path in Brazil,” he said, in blithe defiance of the pile of academic studies that find no economic benefit from sports tournaments.
Brazil is building airports, roads and ports for 2014. These are fine things, but they shouldn’t be pegged to a World Cup. If you need a new airport, build it. If you only need a new airport for four football matches, don’t build it. The demands of a football tournament are seldom those of daily life.
Brazilian officials should know this already. One chilly winter’s Saturday in Johannesburg this June, dozens of them came to a workshop where South African officials told them about hosting – about, as one South African said, “some of our cuts and bruises”.
The Brazilians were mostly cheery, as befits officials making a “study visit” to a World Cup. But they heard chilling things. Perhaps the most chilling came from a woman whom I won’t name, to keep her out of trouble. She’s a senior official for Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg.
She told the Brazilians how, in early 2009, she had reviewed the projected economic boost the tournament would bring her province. She looked for numbers – and found almost nothing.
South Africa had been saying the tournament would increase tourism, create jobs, build useful infrastructure, etc. But she realised: “It wasn’t going to be giving us the benefits that we had told the country the World Cup was going to give us.” True, Johannesburg’s creaky transport links would improve a bit, but “it wasn’t as much as we had thought”. And so, over a year before kickoff, Gauteng quietly binned hopes of economic bonanza. Somehow the officials forgot to tell the South African people, but then running a province keeps you busy. In the event, predictably, the tournament went well over budget, and attracted few big-spending visitors. I recently got an e-mail from an official at one South African university, which had reserved 92,000 “bed-nights” for football visitors. Shortly before the tournament began, he says, Fifa’s booking agency returned 91,000 nights unused. “We are still trying to sell off the additional linen we had to purchase,” the official complains. If sports economists are right, the Cup won’t boost future tourism and foreign investment in South Africa either.
Brazil should enjoy its World Cup. However, it should view it strictly as a party. A party is fun, but costs money. Nobody says, “I’ll have a birthday party, and I’ll turn a big profit.” Economically, the tournament will entail transfers from some Brazilians to others: from taxpayers to football clubs, which will get shiny new stadiums, and from women (generally not so keen on football) to men (more keen). The tournament could also be a nice little earner for anyone who happens to own a stadium-building company. It won’t do much for slum-dwellers.
Brazil needs to keep costs down. At least it hasn’t copied South Africa’s strategy of rolling over and giving Fifa anything it wants. One Brazilian aide told me about tough negotiations with the global football authority. Nor does Brazil appear as naive about the fabled bonanza as South Africa was. Even Silva admitted that Brazilians were fiercely debating the benefits of hosting. “OK, fine,” he said. “The good thing is that Brazilian public opinion is astute.”
It needs to be. As that woman from Gauteng told her visitors: “There are a lot of mistakes we made that you hopefully won’t make.” Brazil should remember the empty stadium beside the Nelspruit slums, and that unused mountain of university linen.
simon.kuper@ft.com
Showing posts with label World Cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Cup. Show all posts
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
World Cup Helped South Africa Score Points Abroad
World Cup helps SA score points abroad, reputation study shows
REPUTATION
Published 13 Oct 2010
Article by: Loni Prinsloo0 Comments
The latest study by the Reputation Institute in South Africa has shown that as far as reputations of countries go, South Africa had moved into a better neighbourhood following the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Speaking at the release of the study on Wednesday, the institute's MD Dominik Heil said that post the hosting of the World Cup, South Africa moved from a grouping of countries with some serious reputational issues, such as Iran and the Ukraine, to an area where South Africa was statistically significant to countries such as the US and India.
The Reputation Institute South Africa's study formed part of a global study conducted, where consumers in each of the Group of Eight (G8) countries, rated 39 country brands to provide a snap shot of the reputation of emerging markets with G8 consumers. The study is usually conducted on a yearly basis, but a second study was conducted to calculate the effect that the World Cup had on South Africa's reputation.
Heil showed that foreign perceptions of South Africa climbed from 44,6 points in January to 49,11 points after the sporting event. "The World Cup resulted in foreign countries having a much more holistic view of the country, whereas in the past, they mainly only had access to the ‘bad' news in the country."
The survey also showed that South Africa was viewed more favourably by European countries that were geographically closer to it, such as Germany and Italy, compared with non-European countries, such as the US and Canada.
Heil said that if the country was able to sustain these perceptions, it could lead to increased investment into South Africa. He noted that internationally, South Africa was not really recognised as a significant investment or business country, scoring quite low at 40,51 out of a 100 points for its business environment and 41,63 points for its products and services.
"Even though the country has some very big businesses, such as South African Breweries and Sasol, the products are not always linked with the country itself and consumers are unaware of the company's or the product's origin when using it. I believe that currently South Africa is underrated when it comes to business and investment."
Heil noted that the perception of a country's government could often play a significant role when it comes to investment. The effectiveness of South Africa's government was rated very low by the international community in January 2010 at 36,51 points, but increased somewhat after the World Cup to 39,72 points.
While South Africa scored some points in the international community, perceptions by South Africans dropped quite significantly after the World Cup period.
Ratings dropped from 67,78 points in January 2010, to 56 points in August this year. Heil said that the lower self-rating scores could have been driven by the public sector strike.
Perceptions of the effectiveness of the country's government dropped from 60,91 points in January, to a 34,33 points in August this year. "I would not expect the government in any other country to survive with that kind of a drop."
Similarly, confidence in social welfare dropped from 61,73 points to 36,50 points.
Heil said that South Africa's deteriorating self-perception since January 2010, had actually brought it closer to its global score and closed the perception gap that existed earlier in the year.
Interestingly, for both consumers in the G8 countries and South Africans, the most important driver of the country's reputation was its contribution to the global community.
Heil said that South Africa's second election to the United Nations Security Council was a golden opportunity to show the world and the country's citizens that it could positively contribute to the global community.
South Africa surprised many, and outraged some, during its first term on the council, when it joined Russia and China in voting against a Security Council resolution on human rights issues in Myanmar, while also finding itself on the wrong side of Zimbabwean politics.
Heil said that siding with the "wrong sides" could damage South Africa's reputation. "Locking the Dalai Lama out of the country will definitely not help the country's reputation. The world and South Africans are expecting the government to make principled decisions, that would assist the country to become politically more significant and credible, which would also help attract investment, visitors and human capital," he concluded.
Edited by: Mariaan Webb
REPUTATION
Published 13 Oct 2010
Article by: Loni Prinsloo0 Comments
The latest study by the Reputation Institute in South Africa has shown that as far as reputations of countries go, South Africa had moved into a better neighbourhood following the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Speaking at the release of the study on Wednesday, the institute's MD Dominik Heil said that post the hosting of the World Cup, South Africa moved from a grouping of countries with some serious reputational issues, such as Iran and the Ukraine, to an area where South Africa was statistically significant to countries such as the US and India.
The Reputation Institute South Africa's study formed part of a global study conducted, where consumers in each of the Group of Eight (G8) countries, rated 39 country brands to provide a snap shot of the reputation of emerging markets with G8 consumers. The study is usually conducted on a yearly basis, but a second study was conducted to calculate the effect that the World Cup had on South Africa's reputation.
Heil showed that foreign perceptions of South Africa climbed from 44,6 points in January to 49,11 points after the sporting event. "The World Cup resulted in foreign countries having a much more holistic view of the country, whereas in the past, they mainly only had access to the ‘bad' news in the country."
The survey also showed that South Africa was viewed more favourably by European countries that were geographically closer to it, such as Germany and Italy, compared with non-European countries, such as the US and Canada.
Heil said that if the country was able to sustain these perceptions, it could lead to increased investment into South Africa. He noted that internationally, South Africa was not really recognised as a significant investment or business country, scoring quite low at 40,51 out of a 100 points for its business environment and 41,63 points for its products and services.
"Even though the country has some very big businesses, such as South African Breweries and Sasol, the products are not always linked with the country itself and consumers are unaware of the company's or the product's origin when using it. I believe that currently South Africa is underrated when it comes to business and investment."
Heil noted that the perception of a country's government could often play a significant role when it comes to investment. The effectiveness of South Africa's government was rated very low by the international community in January 2010 at 36,51 points, but increased somewhat after the World Cup to 39,72 points.
While South Africa scored some points in the international community, perceptions by South Africans dropped quite significantly after the World Cup period.
Ratings dropped from 67,78 points in January 2010, to 56 points in August this year. Heil said that the lower self-rating scores could have been driven by the public sector strike.
Perceptions of the effectiveness of the country's government dropped from 60,91 points in January, to a 34,33 points in August this year. "I would not expect the government in any other country to survive with that kind of a drop."
Similarly, confidence in social welfare dropped from 61,73 points to 36,50 points.
Heil said that South Africa's deteriorating self-perception since January 2010, had actually brought it closer to its global score and closed the perception gap that existed earlier in the year.
Interestingly, for both consumers in the G8 countries and South Africans, the most important driver of the country's reputation was its contribution to the global community.
Heil said that South Africa's second election to the United Nations Security Council was a golden opportunity to show the world and the country's citizens that it could positively contribute to the global community.
South Africa surprised many, and outraged some, during its first term on the council, when it joined Russia and China in voting against a Security Council resolution on human rights issues in Myanmar, while also finding itself on the wrong side of Zimbabwean politics.
Heil said that siding with the "wrong sides" could damage South Africa's reputation. "Locking the Dalai Lama out of the country will definitely not help the country's reputation. The world and South Africans are expecting the government to make principled decisions, that would assist the country to become politically more significant and credible, which would also help attract investment, visitors and human capital," he concluded.
Edited by: Mariaan Webb
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