The Fifa World cup is the most watched international sporting event in the world with the viewership for the 2018 final, Croatia vs. France, being 1.12 billion. It is a time of national pride and of soccer excellence, every player wants to be the one holding the world cup trophy over their head and bringing it to their home country. This year the world cup will be hosted by Qatar in November, due to the extreme heat of Qatar during the summer it was decided that it would be better to have it during a cooler month instead of the usual summer months. This will also be the last year for some of the greatest players of our generation including Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Robert Lewandowski, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and several other greats who are reaching that age where they just need to relax and play in the MLS. Due to the grand spectacle that the world cup is cities al over the world fight tooth and nail to be chosen as the host country. Past countries have included South Africa, Brazil, Russia, and in 2026 the combined countries of the USA,Canada, and Mexico. Although there are obviously several benefits of hosting a world cup there can be several drawbacks to hosting the event.
One obvious benefit of the world cup is simply the amount of immediate money that countries make during the course of the tournament. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, with one of the most viewed yearly events being the UEFA champions league final. What this then means is that millions of people want to be able to see the world cup final games live from all over the world, bringing tourist going to hotels, eating the local food, buying souvenirs, stimulating the local economy of the host country. It is being estimated that the cities hosting the different matches “could expect to see approximately $160 – $620 million in incremental economic activity. That translates to a net benefit of approximately $90 – $480 million per city after accounting for potential public costs.” There is also the overall prestige and presentation of the host country to the rest of the world, allowing countries to showcase how beautiful/amazing their people and cities are. Promoting more tourists to want to go and visit their countries. Even just getting ready for the world we can see a lot changes occur in the country such as in Qatar there is a wide infrastructural plans for hosting in nine eco-friendly stadiums, up-to-date facilities, a world-class metro rail network connecting locations and a nationwide construction boom.
Although there are a lot of benefits to hosting a world cup we can see that there are also several disadvantages as well. These include the overall rise in crime due to so many tourist converging in one country, the overall price of many goods/souvenirs goes way up, and finally there is the overall price of building stadiums that meet FIFA’s requirements. Most of countries that the world cup ends up taking place in actually have to build brand new stadiums due to Fifa’s rules as well as simply to be able to host all the matches, most days there are several games in one day. Due to the construction of the stadiums as well as creating an infrastructure to be able to have so many people watching the games we saw in Brazil, host of the 2014 cup, that some 170,000 people lost their homes during the preparations for this summer’s World Cup in Brazil due to the building or renovation of stadiums, roads, airports and other infrastructure projects. Just to put the overall price of the stadiums in perspective the overall cost to Brazil to build their stadiums ended up equaling $13.5 billion dollars.
The energy an excitement that having the world cup is amazing and energizing. It is also one of the reasons that going to a world cup is so exciting, countries are placing all their hopes and dreams onto the backs of their fellow country men to make a goal. It is one of the final reasons that simply having the world cup is so exhilarating and that the local people themselves want to be able to host it. Just from watching the matches on tv one can see the electricity in the air.
This is a CIMA Law Group blog entry. CIMA Law Group is located in Arizona and specializes in Immigration Law, Criminal Defense, Personal Injury, and Government Relations. If you live in Arizona and need legal assistance CIMA Law Group can help.
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