The World Cup of South Africa; Economic issues

The football world cup of South Africa has begun; this event is not only about the sport impact but also the economic facts that arise from it. Today, more than ever, football is more a business than a sport.

In my opinion this “economic event” would produce three clear winners.

-         FIFA, the undisputed winner, whose numbers seem to be immune to the economic crisis, it has given 420 million of euros to the participating teams, increasing this amount in 159 million over the previous edition, in addition, it is estimated that it will have a turnover of 1.04 billion euros.

-     The second winner would be South Africa, thanks to the world cup, the transport, communication and security have been improved. Besides the tourism will be increase, and each tourist will spend an average of €3000 to which should be added, the benefit that the brand-country South Africa may produce.

-         Another winner but quite far from the precious two winners is the country that wins the competition. In Euro 2008 (a less important competition) the victory of Spain had a positive impact of 90 million of euros excluding the impact on consumption.

I think that it would be also very interesting to analyze the situation of our national team, Spain, whose players would receive 600,000 euros each if they win the tournament, this amount has been heavily criticized due to the bad economic situation that our country is suffering, and don’t lie ourselves, we are not only suffering the consequences of this global economic crisis, but most of all, we are suffering the consequences of an useless government.

The financial American giant, Goldam Sachs, as it does since the France world cup of 1998, writes its own report about the football world cup taking into account economic and political issues. This report also makes an exhaustive analysis of the situation of each country that play these days the maximum football competition, all of this in a key football, providing statistics anecdotes, curiosities, etc, connecting football and economy.

With respect to Spain, the two pages that the report devotes to it, the authors try to compare between the political and economic situation, in sharp decline, and the football situation which has a clear health growth; According to the report, the difference between both areas is that, while in the first one, our leaders have not been able to keep joint to change the situation, taking appropriate actions that would achieve to strengthen the economy in the mid and long term (so-called structural reforms). In the other hand, our team, managed by Luis Aragonés changed radically the situation, from being “the fury” a team with more heart that head and football to be a “tiki-taka” team, making that the “the red one” has become one of the most favourite teams for this championship.

Faced with a football team which seems to aspire to everything, we have a country that seems to aspire to nothing, or rather, that seems to aspire to be rescued by the EU (which we preside this year) following the trail of our battered partners.

The future is dark for our country and if the feelings of the public are very pessimist, an early elimination in the World Cup could mean another moral hit for the Spaniards, what could deteriorate the confidence in our possibilities. So  it would not be surprising that like the “Financial Times” publishes in one of its editorials; one of the most interesting Spaniards that our selection wins the championship is Rodriguez Zapatero.