I recently found myself in a debate with some supporters of the bid for Australia to host the World Cup in 2018 or maybe 2022.
At the heart of the discussion was the idea that hosting such an event would be beneficial for the national economy, in terms of tourism, investment etc. But I've always been a bit skeptical of such claims. Did the Olympics in Sydney in 2000 help the hosting city and state? I've never seen the figures.
So I was glad to read this article today.
In 2000, NSW's share of Australian tourism fell.
When the US hosted the World Cup in 1994, the economic effect was a multi-billion dollar loss, rather than the four billion boost its supporters claimed.
With that in mind, I hope Australia not only does not host the World Cup, but does not even bid. To make a bid for something that'd be detrimental economically would just be daft.
0 Comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)