South America might be a football-crazy continent, but most of the countries lack the necessary infrastructure to host the most widely watched single sports event — the FIFA World Cup. The only nation in the continent capable of hosting the mega sports event is Brazil and there were few eyebrows raised when Brazil won the chance to host the 2014 football World Cup when the decision was made in the Swiss capital Zurich.
Brazil must count themselves lucky to have won the bid. Earlier this week, football’s world governing body, FIFA, scrapped its policy of rotating the World Cup among continents but that measure won’t come into effect until after 2014. Entire South America unanimously backed Brazil for hosting the World Cup and the Brazilian football as well as administrative authorities must be thanking them all.
The hosting of the World Cup is of course going to help the fastest growing South American nation in the long run. Hosting a global sporting event comes with strings attached such as high cost of renovation and restructuring the nation’s infrastructure but more often than not, the benefits outweigh the renovation costs.
Brazil is inundated with football stadiums and so need not make too many in time for the 2014 World Cup. But the plethora of stadiums needs to be repaired and modernize. Also the infrastructure of the nation as a whole has to be developed for the smooth integration of the millions of spectators who would be flocking to the nation in 2014, bringing heaps of cash to lift the tourism industry.
The last time that Brazil hosted the competition, it ended in bitter disappointed for the hosts. In 1950, Uruguay beat Brazil to win the World Cup but times have many changes since then. Uruguay are struggling to maintain a footballing stronghold even in South America, let alone the world, while Brazil are the world superpowers. Hosting the 2014 World Cup would also provide the Brazilian national team to win the competition on home soil.
Image: Football, UK
Source: The Economist
