The Economic Impact of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil and South Africa

Introduction:
It is a matter of time that soccer has become the most followed sport and FIFA World Cup the most watched sporting event in the world. With such fan following this game has been turned into a game of money. Participating teams get rewards, FIFA generate revenues, stakeholders (i.e. sponsors, broadcasters) make money, and host country get multiple economic benefits from this mega event. This is the reason why countries prefer to host FIFA World Cup. Taking a glance at the past, there is not much difference in the behavior of countries when it comes to the hosting of this event, either it is the time before or after year 2010, countries just bid to win. Criticism is always there, like protests of a specific community for their economic rights when a country gets the rights of hosting. By taking to account the past experiences of South Africa (in 2010) and Brazil (in 2014), a host country’s economy is always positively affected by hosting a FIFA World Cup. However, hosting the FIFA World Cup also have negative impacts on the economy of host countries because many countries do more and more expensive bidding, to host this global mega event.
Outline
THESIS STATEMENT: FIFA World Cup is the most popular sporting event in the world, and it has been a great benefit to the world of sports but it also has impacted the host countries’ economies in beneficial and degrading ways. Sports is an impactful event for the whole world and it can be utilized in beneficial and better ways through the unification of people and fans-alike.
* ECONOMIC EFFECTS ON HOST COUNTRIES
* Short Term impacts
* Most politicians and economists in the past two decades hold optimistic views on the short-term impacts of the World Cup, believing that by increasing the demand for domestic tourism and retailing, the World Cup will bring additional revenue and employment to the host countries (Liu, 2013)
* Long term impacts
* Long-term positive impacts are not reflected on employment or accommodation as mentioned above, but on new aspects like the stadiums, psychological states of citizens, and image of the host countries (Liu, 2013). There are negative impacts in long term, like unstable politics, unused grounds etc.
* Case study of Africa (FIFA 2010)
* It is found that in the short term, there would only be a favorable outcome in the economy should financing be shared between higher present taxes and revenue generated from future economic growth and private investment (Bohlmann 10)
* A developing country like South Africa benefited both in terms of long and short term. US$5 billion was generated by this mega event that was sufficient to boost up the economy.
* Case study of Brazil (FIFA 2014)
* The FIFA World Cup Tournament would add nearly US$30 billion to Brazil’s GDP between 2010 and 2014, generating 3.63m jobs per year and raising an additional US$8 billion in tax revenues. FIFA’s showcase event may draw an additional 3.7m tourists the country, each of whom will spend an average of US$2,488 (Morpurgo, 2015)
* In conclusion, there was no difference in the popularity or demand of hosting by different countries before and after year 2010. This time Brazil get the chance to host and they also b...