How Does The World Cup Affect The Economy?

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How Does the World Cup Affect the Economy?
The FIFA World Cup together with the World Expo and the Olympic Games are regarded as the most prestigious sporting events in the world and countries hosting them are projected to reap huge economic benefits. These events contribute to the huge influx of people into the host countries as well as increased publicly-funded infrastructure, including construction of stadiums, roads, and airports among other things. For instance, in Uruguay where the first World Cup was held, approximately half a million people visited the country. The number has been increasing in successive World Cups with more than 3 million spectators attending World Cups held in Germany and South Africa. The amount invested in infrastructure and World Cup events has also increased massively. Some economist suggests that it is not economically viable to invest such a huge amount if it will last only for a month. They argue that the costs of attaining these noble goals typically outweigh the subsequent economic benefits. I believe that hosting a mega sporting event like the FIFA World Cup plays a crucial role in the economic growth of the host country. I will use various scholarly articles to back my argument and show how mega sporting events are economically beneficial to the host country.
Research Context
Various research studies confirm that the World Cup has short- and long-term economic benefits within retailing, employment, accommodation and tourism sectors of host countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Japan, Germany and Italy among others. In this research five scholarly articles, all related to the past FIFA World Cups will be analyzed in a bid to discern the economic benefits realized by host countries. The articles will be selected by their relevance to the research topic. Other selection criteria will include the credibility and reliability of sources depending on the authors. The sources will be summarized and analyzed thoroughly to reveal the role World Cup plays in the economic growth of host countries. The short- and long-term benefits will be presented after a complete analysis of these scholarly articles.
Summary and Analysis of Articles
Antуn, Antonio J. Monroy, Juan Josй Mйndez Alonso, and Gema Sбez Rodrнguez. "Mega-events impact on economic growth: Analysis of the South African World Cup." African journal of business management 5.16 (2011): 6940-6948.
Antуn et al. (2011) inspect economic benefits South Africa would obtain by hosting the 2010 World Cup. The authors examine economic trends of six countries that have hosted World Cup previously, including Mexico 1986, Italy 1990, Brazil 1994, France 1998, Japan and South Korea 2002, and Germany 2006 before, during and after the event. The results indicate that hosting a mega-event has several economic benefits which improve the GDP of the host country. Some countries such as Japan recorded four years of economic growth after the 2002 World cup. The pre-economic growth was observed in the case of South Africa, a period between 2004 and 2008. The study, therefore concludes that the previous host countries benefited from improved infrastructure such as iconic stadiums, road...