Is World Cup Soccer Worth It?

The question many people are asking these days is whether World Cup Football is worth the tax money plunked down to host it.

Civic Money and Recreation

Most of our recreation opportunities come from a community model. We have live performance spaces only a few citizens will ever step into. We fund hockey rinks, swimming pools and sports fields for others. Yet others hike, bike, or walk on the many trails and paths maintained by various levels of government and volunteer organizations. We fund thousands of classes and recreational events for another wide range of people.

This sounds like an equitable system, because anyone can choose to participate. Of course, it mainly benefits the middle classes: those with the time, money, and inclination to participate. A single parent juggling three entry-level jobs to make ends meet probably doesn’t benefit much from the city’s recreation programs and facilities.

And FIFA is the top of the inequity heap. It is not recreation; it is the entertainment business. It is the rich entertaining the rich and persuading the rest of us to pay for it. Apologists say the tournament is expected to inject $1.7 billion into the provincial economy, which is highly doubtful. Hotel occupancy is running 55% this week. This means the games did not produce a huge upswing in attendance, despite city expenditure for security, facility upgrades (some of which are only required because of FIFA standards) and core services such as transport and health.

And as usual, the trickle-down effect doesn’t work. I’d like to know how many extra staff will be hired on in MacDonald’s restaurants during the games.

The irony is that originally soccer was such a unifying force in the world because it needs such little infrastructure. Hockey, for example, can hardly compete in world popularity with a game that can be played in the street with a bundle of rags for a ball.

Alternative Places to Spend our Recreational Dollar

Would the city and the province be better off if the money was spent instead on grass-roots programs and public recreation opportunities? Would the citizens of Vancouver and B. C. be better off with a multitude of ethnic festivals, children’s festivals, and other events spread throughout the city, so that the largess is spread to neighbourhood restaurants and merchants?

Compared to Modern Art

Which is better for the art world: a hundred million spent for the glory of one owner to buy a Picasso, or one  hundred thousand each spent to support a thousand contemporary artists? Put it in a smaller scale. Is it better for the economy for someone to pay a thousand bucks for a FIFA ticket, or spend a thousand in the community over the next ten months?

The Bottom Line

So, we end up with a city paying around $700 million (about 500 bucks per taxpayer.) for an event that only benefits people who can lay down $1,000 for a ticket. It’s not about recreation, it’s about government getting into the entertainment business and losing our shirts.

It all comes down to pride, and that one you will have to answer for yourself. You paid out five hundred bucks for the privilege of saying that the World Cup of Football was played in our city. That’s all you’re getting.

Is it worth it to you?