As a big fan of football, and someone who loves Latin
American culture, I am naturally very excited about Brazil hosting the World
Cup. I am looking forward to see if Neymar can live up to his hype, some dogged
performances by Tiago Silva (possibly the best defender in the world) and
seeing if Hulk/Jo/Fred will be good enough to lead the line of a World Cup
winning team. I am also excited to see the Maracana stadium and the vibrant
culture of Brazil on my TV every day.
However, I have some niggling doubts about whether it is
right for a developing country like Brazil to host a mega event like the World
Cup (not forgetting the Olympics in two years’ time). Before I get accused of
being a European imperialist as I do not doubt that the World Cup will be a
great event and I will love the tournament all the more for being in the global
south. However, I do have doubts over whether
it will be the right thing for the people of Brazil, which is a country where
the richest 10% of Brazilians receiving 42.7% of the nation's income, while the
poorest 34% receive less than 1.2% despite the positive efforts to cut poverty
by the Workers Party (the current party of power).
My first doubts started to arise during last year’s Confederations
Cup (eventually won by Brazil) when thousands of people took to the streets in
protest, initially against a rise in bus fares, but it soon snow balled into a
protest about wider issues of money wasted and corruption around the World Cup. The legendary footballer turned politician
Romario has surprised many by becoming a leading figure of the burgeoning
protest movement. Romario has been a
surprisingly erudite and outspoken critique stating that, “I’m not against the World
Cup, I’m against the excessive costs… Fifa comes here, establishes a state
within our state, sovereignty above our sovereignty, and leaves with two or three
billion dollars in profit. And then what
happens to the white elephants they built?”
The arguments in favour of holding the World Cup in
Brazil are put into the public domain on a regular basis. The first and obvious
one is for footballing reasons. Brazil has
an outstanding footballing tradition and deserve the chance to host the World
Cup. Another one is the use of “Soft Power” by the Brazilian government of show
casing the country and showing to the world how far Brazil has become whist simultaneously
selling Brazil further to the world – creating business opportunities. Many
argue that the World Cup will bring a direct economic boost to the country through
job creation and infrastructure improvements created by the influx of tourists
and public spending around the championship.
Additionally some believe that the benefits of the World Cup go much
deeper than simple economics such as leaving a legacy to inspire the youth of Brazil,
much like the ‘Inspire a Generation’ campaign of London 2012. It can also be
pointed out that the Social Movements of Brazil are able to use the World Cup
to gain extra publicity to force social change which would not be possible
without the world’s gaze.
However, going of past experience World Cups rarely bring
the promised economic uplift promised by politicians. This is due to fans not
spending as much money as predicted around the ground, with many independent
vendors not being able to sell outside the ground unless they are an official
FIFA vendor such as Coca Cola (even Pepsi are prohibited). For example,
according to the journalist Simon Kuper, in the World Cup hosted by the USA in
1994 none of the cities which hosted a game saw an economic uplift compared to
non host cities. In Euro 96 the UK
government predicted it would generate 250,000 visitors but it fell well short
at 100,000 visitors. According to a Liverpool University study Liverpool (a
host city) generated a total of 30 jobs all of which were temporary.
After the World Cup 2002 most of Japan’s stadiums now lie
unused and in Poland (host of Euro 2012) they have also been left with unprofitable five star hotels which had to
be built for officials and teams. If you wanted to regenerate an area why don’t
you simply spend money on regeneration projects instead of sporting mega events?
According to Amnesty International the Brazilian government is one step away from passing a new ‘terrorism’ Bill ahead of the tournament in June. If passed it could see any civilian attending a protest – regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not – imprisoned for peacefully demonstrating. The Brazilian police who are in charge of maintaining this order are often not trained properly in dealing with mass demonstrations and are often criticised as being unreformed from the time of when Brazil was a military dictatorship, with Amnesty International again claiming that 80% of Brazilians are afraid of being tortured by their own police force on arrest.
If this was not enough the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), and in particular its President Jose Maria Marin, have been criticised for corruption. On January 25 2012, during the medal ceremony of the Copa São Paulo de Futebol Júnior, he controversially pocketed one of the winner’s medals that would be handed to Corinthian’s player Mateus. Marin was also a member of the party of the old military dictatorship and he has been linked to the death of the journalist Vladmir Herzog in 1975. Marin had previously made several public speeches criticising Herzog.
The most convincing argument for any country to host a World Cup is the evidence that such events lead to increased happiness within the host nation, which was put to me by Simon Kuper in his excellent book Soccernomics. Kuper claims that using the European Commission’s happiness barometer shows there is a clear jump in happiness in countries which host large sporting events. However, another important finding from his research was that in general Europe is no happier now than it was fifty years ago even though income has doubled. This highlights two key factors. Firstly, that extra happiness brought by events is even more impressive. Secondly, it also highlights that there is only a link between happiness and income for those who earn less than £11,000 a year, which is very few people in the Global North showing that investing in mega events in the developed world may be tangibly worth it for the wellbeing of their populations. However, Brazil like South Africa before it, have large swathes of their population which live on way less than £11,000 a year so therefore the money spent on the World Cup would be much better spent improving people’s happiness by spending more on education, health care and creating sustainable jobs.
As someone who is deeply interested in the politics and
culture of the Global South, it is with a heavy heart that I say, for the
benefit of the people living there, that global mega events should not be held
in developing countries at the moment. This is unless they can be fully
subsidised by rich nations in the North, which is probably the least these
countries could do for the hardships they have inflicted on the South through
slavery and imperialism. What is your opinion?
