FOOTBALL, FINANCE AND THE MYTH OF THE LUCKY BREAK

The World Cup brings an excitement to me, undeemed since my first world cup in 1982. Unlike now when we are looking to put the GOAT (Greatest of all time) debate to rest, the star of that world cup for me was the football -- the Tango Espana.

For months or was it years after, that ball, whose design was a break from the alternating black and white pentagons of a previous Adidas balls, was enough to ensure everybody was your best friend if you owned one.

True that was the World Cup that served as Paolo Rossi’s redemption, announced Diego Maradona – he was red carded in his last match against Brazil when he planted his studs in Brazilian Batista’s groin and Cameroon’s unbeaten run at their debut. But the Tango was it for me.

As I have grown older I have added another layer to my appreciation for the biggest sporting event in the world – the business of football.

Every four years the World Cup reminds us that football is not just 22 men chasing a ball. It is organisation, money, logistics, culture, psychology and national ambition compressed into 90 minutes.

The 2026 edition makes the point even louder. For the first time, the tournament is being hosted by three countries — the United States, Mexico and Canada — with 48 teams playing 104 matches across 16 cities. FIFA expects the tournament cycle to generate about US$11 billion (approximately Shs40 trillion) in revenue, making it the richest World Cup in history. Broadcasting rights alone will generate more than US$4 billion, while ticketing, hospitality and sponsorships are expected to contribute several billion more.

That is not merely a football tournament. It is a global business enterprise.

To host a World Cup, you need airports, roads, hotels, stadiums, security, television infrastructure, immigration systems, medical support, volunteers and the capacity to move hundreds of thousands of people across cities without the whole thing collapsing. Hosting a World Cup is a feat.

Qualifying for one is also a feat.

There are no flukes.

A country may get one lucky goal. It may benefit from one refereeing decision. It may have one golden generation. But to arrive at the World Cup requires years of youth development, coaching, administration, player welfare, medical support, competitive exposure and the ability to manage pressure over a long qualifying campaign.

That is why some of the most interesting teams to watch this year are not necessarily the traditional giants. Japan, Norway and Morocco may not all win the tournament, but they demonstrate the point that football success is built long before the first whistle.

Japan is perhaps the clearest example. Three decades ago, Japanese football was still finding its place in the global game. Then came the J-League in 1993, professionalisation, academies, coaching structures and a deliberate national football philosophy. Today, Japan is no longer treated as a tourist at the World Cup. Its players are scattered across Europe’s top leagues. Its teams are technically brave, tactically disciplined and psychologically unfazed by the big names. That is not luck. That is a 30-year plan paying dividends.

Norway tells a slightly different story. For years, it produced talented players but lacked the depth and system to consistently trouble the biggest nations. Over the last decade, however, Norwegian players have broken into world-class leagues in numbers and with impact. Erling Haaland and Martin Ødegaard are the obvious poster boys, but the real story is not just two stars. It is a system that has improved talent identification, coaching and pathways from domestic football into Europe’s elite game.

Morocco may be the most fascinating of the three. Its 2022 semi-final run was treated by many as a miracle. It was not. It was the result of infrastructure, federation strategy, diaspora scouting and national ambition. The Mohammed VI Football Academy and Morocco’s deliberate courting of players of Moroccan descent abroad have given the Atlas Lions a depth that many African countries envy.

This year Morocco has pushed that idea even further. It has reportedly become the first national team to field a side whose players were all born outside the country they represent. Some may frown at that. But diaspora talent is still national capital.

This is the lesson for Uganda.

We want qualification without the boring work of pitches, academies, nutrition, school competitions, transparent federation finances, local league marketing, coaching certification and player development pathways. We want the final whistle without the 20-year pipeline.

The World Cup punishes that thinking.

More importantly, it exposes the difference between administrators who are custodians and those who are consumers. The Japanese football administrators who professionalised the J-League in the early 1990s knew they would probably never enjoy the full fruits of their work. The architects of Morocco’s football renaissance knew the biggest rewards would come years after they had left office. They planted trees whose shade would be enjoyed by future generations.

That is the mentality Uganda’s football administrators have too often lacked.

As long as football leadership is viewed primarily as an opportunity to line pockets rather than build institutions, Ugandan football will remain trapped in mediocrity. A football nation is not built in a four-year cycle. It is built over decades. It requires leaders willing to invest in systems whose rewards they may never personally enjoy.

Uganda’s World Cup dream will not be born in one qualification campaign, one foreign coach or one talented generation. It will be born in schools, academies, district leagues, better coaching, proper pitches, credible administration and a sports economy that rewards excellence.

The uncomfortable truth is that we do not lack talent. We lack systems. Talent occasionally wins matches. Systems consistently qualify for World Cups.

There are no flukes. Not in football. Not in development. And certainly not at the World Cup. The scoreboard eventually catches up with the quality of the system behind it.

MAKING SENSE OF THE BUSINESS OF SPORT

Last week former MP Odonga Otto lit up social media with claims that Uganda’s sports bodies, more specifically football governing body FUFA and the Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) receive millions of dollars a year from the international parent bodies to support sport but that the sportsmen do not benefit.

The former MPs diatribe was prompted by the question “Why isn’t Uganda at the World Cup?”.

Interestingly movie streaming company, Netflix, released a docuseries “FIFA Uncovered” a damning expose of how football governing body is riddled with corruption.

All this was happening against the backdrop of one of the most exciting World Cup’s in recent memory.

I think the honorable Otto’s claims should be looked into, if only so our sportsmen can get the much-needed facilitation they sorely deserve. But that is a story for another day.

However, what piqued my interest this week was the release of Forbes annual list of highest paid sportspersons.

Its an exciting list, like all such lists go.

"At the top of the list was Argentine footballer, Lionel Messi who last year made $130m (sh480b) before tax on and off the pitch. Messi, 34, took a salary cut to join Paris St Germain from Barcelona but business partnerships with Adidas, Budweiser and PepsiCo more than made up for the shortfall and then some...

There were other household names in the world of sports on the list like basketball’s LeBron James ($121m), Stephen Curry($92.8m) and Kevin Durant($92.1m); Soccer’s Christian Ronaldo ($115m) and Neymar ($95m); now-retired Tennis player Roger Federer ($90.7m) and boxer Canelo Alvarez ($90m) among others.

Interestingly despite the recent global crisis, sportsmen’s earning have been seen a lot of inflation. A decade ago the highest paid athlete was boxer Floyd Mayweather who earned in ($85m) and Ronaldo was the only soccer player in the top ten.

A decade further back Tiger Woods was the top earning sportsman pulling in $69m that year. There was no soccer player in the top 10 that year. 

Clearly more and more money is being thrown at sport, are we seeing a corresponding jump locally?

Our sports associations are largely run by volunteer administrators, who while not getting a regular income (so we think), hang on to their positions like grim death. If you line them up they are not the most altruistic members of our society, so you have to wonder why they keep in office for so long. For the love of the game? Puleez!

That aside the explosion in incomes for athletes around the world is a reflection of the need for content to feed the media. Revenues from broadcast long outstripped matchday seat sales for premiership teams.

It makes sense, the more people watching a sport, the more people will pay to slap their logos on those athletes to gain top of mind awareness with the consuming public...

So that seems to be a logical place to start, how do we attract eyeballs to our sports? With internet and the falling price of data It is easier than ever before to do this.  A half decent smartphone positioned to film from a strategic place and live streaming on any number of social media would be a good start.

For people to consume your media product they need they need consistency and quality and then the numbers can be sold to corporate clients. Its not automatic that the numbers will flood to your uploads that is a function of awareness building and marketing.

The following that comes with that can then be leveraged for sponsorships. Increased revenues can then be used to beef up sportsmen welfare and improve existing infrastructure

I simplify of course but it is actually a linear logic.

The sports administrators will complain that this needs money anyway. True, but the administrators need to cross the table to the side of the corporate sponsors to see things from their perspective.

The man with the budget is looking to see how much bang he can get for his buck, the assurance that if he gives you money, he will be able to report more sales of his product or greater brand awareness. If you can show him that, it makes it that much easier to loosen the purse strings. Its sales 101, show me value and I show you the money...

The money man on the other side of the table want also to see organization, so that he is sure that at the minimum his money will be good use and better still there can be a long-term relationship built. So, our organisations need to get organized (ironic?) before they can get money. Is it in anyone’s interest to keep them disorganized?

By the time Ronaldo commands $55m in off field income, his agents can point to the more than 690 million social media followers around the world, as a guarantee of eyeballs on him. These are independently verifiable. And by the way Ronaldo has all these followers due somewhat to momentum – I am following Ronaldo because my friends are following him, but more because his followers came from a deliberate marketing effort. You try to get a thousand followers on social media and you will see how hard it is to raise numbers.

THE BUSINESS OF THE WORLD CUP

It has been 40 years since I was introduced to the football World Cup. The World Cup in 1982, held in Spain, was won by Italy.

The tournament also introduced us to the Tango Espana, the official ball of that World Cup, and the last genuine leather ball to be used in the World Cup. That ball, a more stylish option to the old black and white ball, was a collector’s item in the playgrounds that I grew up on.

It was the year that Italian Paulo Rossi, previously suspended for match fixing, was top scorer and player of the tournament. He is one of only three players to ever have won all three – World Cup, Golden Boot and Golden Ball in a single tournament. He fired up our childhood imaginations, we all wanted to be Paulo Rossi.

This year’s World Cup did not seem to be accompanied with the funfair I was used to. Maybe because of my lowered expectations, I have been pleasantly surprised at how I have enjoyed the matches. It helps of course that the underdogs are upsetting the form book, as well.

But ahead of this edition of the World Cup, the story of how much Qatar had spent to host the event was big news.

"According to who you believe Qatar has spent about $300b (sh1,100trillion) over the last 12 years in preparation for the event. To put this in perspective Qatar has a GDP of $180b so they almost spent twice the size of their economy on this World Cup. Or to put it in better perspective over the last 12 years they have spent the equivalent of the GDP of Uganda every year to prepare!

And even more jaw dropping is that the Qataris expect the games to bring in $17b over the mouth long event, not even ten percent of the initial cost.

The figures are further mind boggling when you see that this World Cup is going to cost more than 15 times the $15b spent in the 2014 Brazilian edition, the next most expensive World Cup ever.

The Qataris are asking, who says we should recoup our investment at the World Cup?

The investments? They have built eight stadiums from scratch of which seven will be dismantled after the games; They built 108 hotels to house the estimated 1.3 million visitors they expect during the month-long event; They have doubled the capacity of their airport and built a whole new railway system under the desert.

Most immediately this huge government expenditure is driving Qatar’s economy, which has been growing steadily for the last decade and set to grow in double digits this year.

"But while the World Cup has triggered this massive outlay, it is only part of a larger plan to make Qatar a global transport hub. Of the reported $300b only $10 billion was spent on infrastructure specifically for the World Cup, which means developments will continue after the final whistle is blown.....

It makes sense. While the leaders of Qatar are not beholden to their people in the “western” democracy sense, they needed a big event like the World Cup to not only trigger the massive expenditures we have seen, but also announce to the rest of the world that they are open for business. Which better event to use than the World Cup?

Understandably, one of the major winners of this construction boom is the Qatari construction industry, which given the capacity they have built will be able to move more aggressively to take up contracts at home and abroad.

But given the growing momentum of the green energy movement, the oil sheikhs of the middle east have seen the writing on the wall and preparing to pivot away from reliance on oil revenues. Dubai was the early bird on this.

In the late 1970s and 1980s China went on a similar spending spree on infrastructure and human capacity development. At the time western economies were similarly unimpressed and wondered what they will use all that capacity for. China is still building but is also now the second largest economy in the world and may very well rise to the biggest economy within the decade.

"The narrative has been, up to this point that these big extravaganzas – including the Olympics, are just gravy trains for the ruling government and their cronies, that actually leave the tax payers picking up the tab with little benefit to themselves....

The Economist last week had an infographic that showed that apart from the World Cups in Mexico and Russia in 1986 and 2018 respectively, all other World Cups since 1966 have spent more than they earned during the event.

It may just be that after Qatar other governments may start scrambling to host future events, planning them to have longer term benefits to their respective economies way after the event.

Of course, planning is one thing and the reality is something else altogether. The Qataris have set their plan in motion we should return to this space in a decade or two to see whether it actually panned out. See you then.

THE WORLD CUP … IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID!

I suffered withdrawal symptoms last week when, on Wednesday and Thursday there were no World Cup matches to watch.

It surprised me because I thought I was not emotionally invested in this year’s edition in Russia. Clearly I was wrong.

I have also been rereading my copy of Soccernomics, the enlightening book by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, whose promise to explain, “Why England lose, Why Germany, Spain and France win and why one day the rest of the world will finally catch up” caught my eye, when I bought if before the last world cup in Brazil....

There is a new updated version that came out earlier this year.

Using data the authors unravel the mysteries of why Africa teams struggle on the international stage, that football clubs are best when they make losses, how the health of populations determine whether a country will be successful or not and that World Cups do not make money for hosting nations among other subjects.

It’s a veritable page turner.

What interested me was the author’s assertion that to be successful on the soccer world stage a county needs to have a GDP per capita of at least $15,000.

They worked out by going over hundreds of data points this was the magic number as it suggested that such countries have taken care of their basic needs and have enough money left over to build the infrastructure to identify and nurture world beating soccer players.

In World Cup history of the eight countries that have won the World Cup only two countries have economies that do not meet this criteria. Interestingly they are all from South America. Argentina winners in 1978 and 1986, Brazil in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. Uruguay who lifted the cup in 1930 and 1950 have a per capita GDP of $18,000. Brazil and Argentina’s numbers come in at $10,224 and $14,000 respectively.

But interestingly even those countries all European, which meet the criteria, the catchment area for their stars was the poorer sections of their society.

The explanation was that the middle class kids have school and other extracurricular activities while the poor are not only playing all the time but are more likely to give up their education to pursue a professional sports career.

With differing degrees of sophistication all these winners have an extensive soccer networks with teams at every level from toddler to the professionals. The Europeans have more sophisticated infrastructure compared to the South Americans, famed for learning their skills on the street using everything from oranges to stuffed socks.

They also showed that these countries are exposed to a lot of competition. Not only are their respective leagues very competitive, they have very competitive continental tournaments and play a disproportionately large number of friendlies annually.

And finally the corporate backing of the sport in all these countries is significant but it is underpinned by functioning governing bodies. Football associations who facilitate the recruitment, nurturing and placing of talent....

The long and short of It, the book, shows is that making it to the World Cup leave alone winning it is not the sole responsibility of the respective football federation. To paraphrase, it takes the whole country to win the World Cup.

There are no miracles. And whenever there is overnight success in soccer know it has been years in coming.

So we want to go to the world cup and even win it.

To get a seat at the table – you will not get a chance to win the World Cup if you are not participating in it, we need to grow our economy significantly.

At $15,000 per capita at the current population we need to grow our economy to $600b – about the size of Taiwan’s economy, from the current $25b.

Assuming the current economic growth rate of about 6 percent it would take us 55 years to hit the target.

A daunting prospect.

In order to increase the economic output this level investments infrastructure would have to remain consistent for the said period. We have a long way to go. For instance just to get to a middle income economy we have to quadruple the stock of paved roads to at least 88 km per square km of land from the current 20 km per unit area. And we would have to then quadruple it again to even come close to a $600b economy.

We need to get our power consumption to at least where Brazil’s. A 2014 estimate put Brazil’s power consumption per person at 287 kwh per year. At the same time Uganda’s was about 70 kwh per person.

And we haven’t even started talking about the quality of our human resource, which is key because you can have all the infrastructure in the world but if the quality of your human resource isn’t at a certain level this would count for nothing.

"There are no shortcuts. We will not fluke our way into the World Cup if our context is wrong...

If winning could be forced a former communist country would have been one of the eight winners of the World Cup. Only Czechoslovakia and Hungary have ever made the finals.

RAINING ON THE WORLD CUP PARADE

I can’t wait for the World Cup to kick off.

The World Cup is without a doubt the biggest entertainment spectacle on the planet.  FIFA, the sport’s governing body estimates that 3.2 billion people watched the last edition in 2010. And of course with all these eyeballs comes money.

In 2010 South Africa spent about $4b – sh10 trillion or about the whole Ugandan annual budget, to prepare for the soccer bonanza.

Brazil it is estimated has already spent about $11b in preparing for the hosting of only their second world cup in 60 years.

Brazil have projected to earn more -- $11b with some $2.6b coming from the expected 600,000 tourists and $7.9b coming from the three million Brazilians who will be at the games.

And these mind bending figures are at the heart of the incessant protests that have plagued the South American nation in recent days.

"It is the classic case of the politicians and statistics saying one thing about a country while the truth on the ground reflects a bleaker reality...

The protestors are outraged that their country can commit such vast sums to the World Cup while poverty and inequality are rampant in the general Brazilian society.

While Brazil may be considered a middle income country with its $10,773 GDP per capita, statistics also show that the country has some of the highest economic unequal societies in the world.

Gini coefficient, which measures economic equality, for Brazil is 0.52 – the nearer this figure is to 1 the more inequality exists in a society. The same figure for Uganda is 0.44. 

Brazil is a “democracy” so one wonders how come Brasilia can be so oblivious to the outcry of the people opting for an event, which is more an aggrandisement project for the powers that be with little benefit to the general society relative to the amounts spent to host this circus?

In fact there is no evidence that any World Cup has met the vaunted expectations that justified its hosting. In South Africa it is estimated the country could have netted $500 million, which is probably overstated as they are now saddled with unviable sporting arenas around the country that are costing local councils millions to manage with no hope of return.

But as always not everyone loses out.

After the last World Cup FIFA banked a $631m surplus to their reserves which doubled to $1.2b. You can expect there are contracting firms still living off the fat of the lucrative infrastructure and business deals. It’s the same old story of a small minority deriving incalculable benefit from these kind of events and living it to the majority – the taxpayers, to foot the bill...

Beyond the thrill of having the superstars of the world game planting their feet on their home soil it is hard to see how hosting a World Cup would sell in a national referendum.

Obviously such public spectacle also play a role in diverting public attention from the real issues while lining the pockets of the connected individuals and companies.

And they have been very successful. Chances are when the world Cup kicks off the protestors will leave the picket lines and tune in to the action.

There are precedents for these kind of tactics by the powers of the day.

"In ancient Rome as the empire’s begun to totter on its foundations ever spectacular events were organised for the general public to enjoy. The Coliseum completed in the first century after Christ was born could accommodate 50,000 people --- Namboole can barely manage 40,000, to view orgies of increasingly gratuitous bloodletting and mythical fantasy to divert the people’s minds from their diminishing welfare, while the powerful elite continued to enjoy lives of pomp and plenty....

The World Cup incidentally becomes more and more spectacular for the viewing public and more profitable for the people who hold the purse strings.

Chances are this analysis will not dampen the fervour for the event. We will suspend disbelief (me too) and enjoy the skill and performance of current heros and maybe, just maybe, get back to the issues a month from now.  Sad but true!

THERE WILL BE A NEXT TIME

This week started off on a somber note. The bomb attacks on World Cup fans in Kabalagala and at Kyadondo Rugby grounds have had us holding our breaths through out the week as the extent of the tragedy became fully known. 

 At the time of writing the official death toll was 74 with scores more wounded and hospitalised. Somali insurgents al-Shabaab, have claimed responsibility for the attack. They want our troops in Somalia, there to guard the capital Mogadishu out. 

Their links to Al Qaeda are well documented. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion our health system came under enormous strain. Mulago and Kampala’s other health facilities were overwhelmed with casualties. Given the already wanting state of health system they acquitted themselves well. But was it well enough? 

 Ghana and Brazil went out of the World Cup at the same stage, but the reception of both teams at home were as different as night and day. Whereas the Black Stars were feted and adopted by all of Africa, Brazil’s multi-million dollar stars were brutally criticized and Dunga’s days as coach are numbered. The difference between the two is one of expectation. 

Ghana and Africa, were content with a quarterfinal finish but for five time winner Brazil, its population wanted nothing less than a return of the cup to their shores. In soccer as in life, your expectations will determine whether you are satisfied with world class results or are content to with much less. 

 We know that already patients at Mulago – our national referral hospital, are enduring less than ideal conditions, one shudders to imagine what happened on Sunday night when more than 50 patients,  many in critical condition descended on our health system. 

 This is not the first time –we survived by a whisker the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, nor will it be the last time that Uganda will be a terrorist target. Beyond that lets put things in perspective. 

The 2001 bombings of New York’s World Trade Center has produced the highest death toll of any terrorist attack in history. Almost 3,000 people died during that attack. Nearer to home 237 people died in the attacks on Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Sunday’s attacks have already been logged and we come a distant 73rd in the list of deaths by a terror attack. 

Invariably the magnitude of the death toll has direct correlation on the victims hospitalized. If the health system of the capital has been overwhelmed by less than 200 casualties, God forbid when the casualties double? An ongoing audit of the health services provision is ongoing and throwing up some disturbing instances of inexplicable negligence of duty and outright corruption in the health system. 

But it is also showing that government needs to better address issues of staff welfare, procurement procedures and overall capacity inadequacies. The upgrading of our health system now more than ever, should become an issue of national security. To continue living at the mercy of god as we have been doing for so long, is not only foolhardy but downright suicidal.

Our centrality in a region of historical instability means that we will inevitably get our share of tragedy, that is a fact and we should not bury our heads in the sand about. Lets organize not agonise. 

Currently Uganda’s health sector budget amounts to an average of $7 per person compared to the $28 per person we require to provide very basic health care for all. That budget needs to be reexamined as a matter of urgency. If we thought we can continue to get by with our less than adequate health service system, let Sunday be our wake up call. 

Published in 17 July New Vision

UGANDA TO HOST WORLD CUP IN 2062

For a country, success in sports is a function of the country’s economic development.

There are of course exceptions to the rule, the best example being Kenya and Ethiopia’s stranglehold on the middle to long distance events in athletics on one hand and the US, Japan or China’s inability to win an international trophy in soccer.

I have conveniently ignored the women’s world cup -- the US won in 1991 and 1999, to make my point.

A quick calculation by yours truly shows that, thanks to South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup this year, Uganda will host the World Cup long before it wins it.

South Africa is the poorest country to ever host the world Cup while Argentina is the poorest country by per capita income to have ever lifted the cup. Uruguay, which won the cup in 1930 and again in 1950, has a per capita income almost twice Argentina’s. Uruguay also hosted the inaugural world cup but has a per capita income almost double South Africa’s.

We could host the World Cup by 2062 and maybe win the cup in the year of our hosting – assuming all things remain constant.

The record shows that a country needs to be at a certain level of development, best measured by the welfare of its people, before it can dream of hosting or winning of a World Cup. And I believe this is no fluke.

The creation of award winning athletes is the business of the whole country – more so with team sports, and not the sole responsibility of the respective sportsman’s family.

In the greater scheme of things sports comes well down the hierarchy of needs after food, shelter, clothing etc.

Politics is important because it determines the economic structure by how the national budget is apportioned and what economic policies are passed.

Providing for your family’s basic needs has more to do with the economy you live in than your own individual level of income and the health of an economy has a lot to do with the politics, the leadership of a country.

A government that stays focused on the ultimate aim of elevating the living standards of its people will have economic policies that will not only encourage growth by allowing the private sector to operate to its full potential, but also distribute this growth to its citizens through delivery of public goods like education, health, physical infrastructure and security.

So a look at the most recent hosts of the World Cup shows that South Africa is the smallest economy – GDP $290b, to ever host a World Cup and also the worst in terms of distribution of this economy.

If you look at the winners Argentina is the smallest economy to ever win at $310b but Brazil is the worst performer at 75th out of 182 on the UN’s Human Development Index, an indicator of how a country does on providing the basics for its people.

So by simple extrapolation assuming Uganda’s $15b economy continues growing at 6% it will take at least 51 years to get to South Africa’s size of economy.

But building the infrastructure to host an event like the World Cup -- it has cost South Africa about $5b in all, cannot happen in isolation of the improved general welfare of the people. A sub plot of the current world cup is the demonstrations against the largesse lavished in hosting the event when the rainbow nation has a few millions languishing in abject poverty.

Using per capita as rough indicator and providing for our current population growth rate of 3.4% it would take us 97 years to lift our per capita income of $475 to South Africa’s $5800.

Using the same logic we will win the World Cup in 2120, using Argentina per capita GDP $7,725 as our benchmark.

Whereas a purely mathematical extrapolation, with oil we might catch up with South Africa’s current GDP much sooner or not for instance, the basic premise still stands: that you have to have attained a certain level welfare for your population before you can go around splurging on multi trillion shilling ego trips.

Ask Greece. Hosting the Olympics in 2004 set back the “poor” European economy by $11b and saddled it with stadiums it barely uses but has fork out at least $300m a year to maintain. This year Greece went bankrupt and threatened to bring down the European economy.

Published June 2010, New Vision