Sport mega-events and their legacies: The 2010 FIFA World Cup

This special issue of Development Southern Africa assesses the likely economic, infrastructural, urban, political, cultural and symbolic legacies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, comparing South Africa's experiences with other international cases.

The event was significant because it was the first of its kind and magnitude to be staged in Africa, placing South Africa in an increasingly competitive international environment for mega-event hosting. It was expected to leave great legacies for the country and to improve its relationship with the African continent and its standing in the international arena.

The FIFA World Cup, one of the most important mega-events on the world sports calendar, stands out not only for its commercial importance but also for the volume of sponsorship, branding, marketing and merchandising it attracts. From an official perspective, this was an opportunity ‘to speed up development and growth in the country so that it leaves behind a proud legacy that will benefit generations of South Africans to come’ (RSA, 2010). The 2010 Local Organising Committee aimed ‘to strengthen the African and South African image, promote new partnerships with the world … [and] drive our collective determination to be significant global players in all fields of human endeavour’ (SAFA, 2007). The Cup was to leave a wider legacy for Africa, inter alia countering Afro-pessimism and encouraging investment in the continent.

During the planning and preparation phases it was doubted whether South Africa would meet the myriad expectations. Questions were asked internationally whether the country had the physical and human resources to host the event to an appropriate standard, but despite the initial logistical hitches the event was widely hailed as an organisational success. Pre-tournament criticism was negated, and the country gained new knowledge and could now offer lessons to other future hosts.

Yet it is still unclear what the Cup's long-term legacies will be. Tourist arrivals fell short of predictions, as did projected tourism income. Other economic data – such as the number of permanent jobs created – will only become available in time, but early indications are that many of the pre-event economic estimations were overly optimistic. And while it has recently been announced that the 2010 finals generated the highest profits for FIFA in the history of the tournament, not much of this will trickle down to the wider South African population.

The articles in this special issue paint a varied picture of the main short-term and medium-term legacies of the event, drawing on the growing international scholarship on sport mega-event legacies and the emerging research principles, methodologies and praxis.

The first two contextualise the main concepts and methodology for appraising the impact of such events. An international discourse has developed to discuss ways and means to increase the positive and reduce the negative. Cornelissen, Swart and Bob discuss the many definitions of ‘legacy’ and draw out important elements, and Fourie, Siebrits and Spronk consider evidence of tourist displacement in two 2009 events, the Indian Premier League cricket tournament and the British and Irish Lions tour, and discuss methodologies for appraising the effects of events on tourist displacement.

Three articles build on these insights, reviewing the legacies of the Cup for the country's cities and the tourism sector, and developing methodologies for analysing event legacies. Haferburg reflects on the event's possible spatial, symbolic and governance effects on urban development. Du Plessis and Maennig show that ex ante estimations of tourist arrivals were off the mark and that there was a significant crowding-out effect, and they point out that over-estimation of the potential impact may itself have contributed to the smaller than expected tourism effect. Using a different method and data source, and identifying time switching, Preuss also discusses the crowding-out effect, looking at the technical problem of assessing this phenomenon and supplying a method for calculating this effect that can be used for other studies.

Finally, three articles consider the social, sport and political legacies of the tournament. Bob and Majola address a neglected aspect of mega-event research – the way the event is seen by a non-host rural community. They find that the community's pre-tournament support for the event was strong, despite expectations of not only positive but also negative impacts on the local economy. Ndlovu-Gatsheni analyses the competing discourses that the event inspired and concludes that the Cup did have symbolic significance, even if much of its nation-building effect would be short-lived. He interprets these dynamics in relation to sociological theory. Finally, Swart, Bob, Knott and Salie explore the social development legacy by focusing on a World Cup related project in a non-host community. Their survey finds evidence of positive impacts on youth development, community pride and social integration, suggesting that some positive social benefits were felt, although the longer term impacts of such projects will have to be monitored.

Even though a multi-city sport mega-event like the FIFA World Cup can attract large numbers of visitors, profile a country internationally and generate revenue, it requires significant investment by the host and can draw needed resources from the public purse. Research into the long-term legacy is therefore vital. Experiences from sport mega-events hosted elsewhere in the world suggest that governance structures and appropriate planning are the most important variables influencing the way the potential benefits for the host's economic and social programmes are leveraged. The provisional assessments in this special issue bear testimony to this.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Scarlett Cornelissen

Guest Editor

Urmilla Bob

Guest Editor

Kamilla Swart

Guest Editor