Hendren Global Group, Deceit, Fraud, And First World Problems, How BRICS Graduated to the Sports Big Leagues and Now Regret It

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Hendren Global Group: Deceit, fraud, and first

world problems: How BRICS graduated to the

sports big leaguesand now regret it

Source

Somewhere between the first protest over transit fare

hikes in Sao Paulo and president Dilma Rousseffs public

address three weeks later, football and the Olympic Games

found themselves swept into the heart of Brazilian anger.

The outcry had centered around failed social services,

corruption, and misplaced expenditure. As the crowds grew from

tens of thousand to a million-strong on June 20, Brazils two

biggest sporting show piecesthe 2014 World Cup football andthe 2016 Olympic Gameswere turned into symbols of

everything wrong with the government and the countrys elite.

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On the day of the Confederations Cup (a preparatory event for2014) semi-final, between Brazil and Uruguay in Belo Horizonte,

50,000 clashed with police a few miles from the stadium. In Brasilia, a

peaceful yet more symbolic protest took place as the crowds kicked

footballs over a police cordonand toward the Congress.

Until Brazils winter of discontent, most criticism in countrieshosting football World Cups or the Olympics tended to emanate from a

relatively small fringe group protesting escalating costs and tax

burdens.

In Brazil, though, what the world saw was protest against the

worlds two biggest sporting events on a gigantic, unprecedented scale.

On a scale that fittingly almost belonged to the dizzy perch that the

Olympics and the World Cup occupy in the hierarchy of eventism.

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The roar of outrage against the World Cup has come from a nationtied into the sport, which writer Alex Bellos calls, the strongest symbol of

Brazilian identity. In Futebol; The Brazilian Way of Life, Bellos writes,

no other country is branded by a single sport to the extent that Brazil

is by football.

The June demonstrations proved that Brazilians have put theirbeloved football in its place. Firmly behind what eventually matters more:

education, jobs, health services, security.

Rousseff and FIFA president Sepp Blatter were booed during the

Confederations Cup opening. The worlds most celebrated footballer Pele

was shouted down after his taped video message said, Lets forget all of

this mayhem thats happening in Brazil, all of these protests, and lets

remember that the national team is our country, our blood.

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On social media, Reuters reported scathing responses: Pele, your

ignorance is in proportion with your footballing genius. Go to the

hospitals, take a bus with no security, then I want to see if you keep

saying stupid things.

This months consequences will play themselves out forBrazilians between now and kick-off 2014. The most beneficial fallout

on the rest of world, though, could be if June 2013 calls time on the

gargantuan size and cost of world sports high-priced mega-events

particularly in developing nations and their growing economies.

It is no coincidence that in the last five years the BRICS

nations have either bid for or hosted mega sporting events.

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Brazil [B] will host the World Cup and the Olympics

Russia [R] will host the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World

Cup football

India [I] staged the 2010 Commonwealth Games, bid for the 2014

Asian Games and, despite its weak footballing structures, is onceagain bidding for the under-17 World Cup football.

China [C] hosted the 2008 Olympics

South Africa [S] the 2010 World Cup football.

In 2018, PyeongChang, Korea will stage the Winter Olympics.The rivals to India and its under-17 World Cup are Uzbekistan, South

Africa and Ireland. The 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar.

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Perhaps the economic grind has led developed countries to arrive

at a more realistic appraisal of what hosting mega events really means. The

number of bids for the Olympics has been decreasing in the last 20 years.In 1993, the five candidate cities for the 2000 Summer Olympics turned to

four in 2009 for the 2016 Games. For 2020, the list is down to three

Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo.

In October 2012, a new coalition government in Netherlands

scrapped the countrys bid for the 2028 Olympics in its policy blueprint

saying hosting the Games brought financial risks. There is little support

for this in a time of crisis and austerity.

In March this year, the Swiss canton of Graubnden voted against

allowing Davos and St. Moritz to bid for the 2020 Winter Olympics.Switzerland is the home of the International Olympic Committee and its

own citizens didnt believe the claims that the winter Olympics would

help tourism and boost the local economy.

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That is the classic booster claim that lures countries and cities

to bid for mega events. The booster offers civic add-ons like improvement

in airports, roads, public transport, sports facilities. What should be civicand national administrative duties in the first place are turned into

privileges made available to mega event hosts. Tied in with this comes

the growing economys desire to advertise its arrival among the high

table of nations with the creation of world-class host cities.

The storyline of mega events has turned into a tired, formulaicscript, which in real terms, has dire results on real people. The

development of either sport or the economy is peripheral, the mega event

becomes a private sector gravy train whose costs of operation are borne

by public funding.

Residents of New Delhi, the host city for the 2010

Commonwealth Games, can see patterns and predictive paths in Brazil

2014 and 2016.

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When a bid is won, citizens are promised that the mega eventwill involve not a single cent of public money. As cost overlays and

delays pile up, the national exchequer is leaned upon to restore national

pride and prevent the countrys global reputation from being that of a

laggard.

In New Delhi, the Games Organizing Committee had beenexpected to generate private sponsorship worth Rs1200 crores (roughly

$200 million at the time). Four months before the Games, a mere Rs342

crores ($62 million) was generated before the government asked leading

public sector firms like the oil companies to chip in. As New Delhi

prepared to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games, conscientious

objection around it pertained to escalating costs, the flouting of

environmental and labour laws and displacement of the marginalised.

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These could have been refrains from Athens 2004 where hosting

the Games cost $11 billion, twice what had been budgeted, of which $7

billion was billed to taxpayers. The collapse of the Greek economy may

not have been directly related to the Games, but in December 2011, evenIOC chairman Jacques Rogge told Greek newspaper Kathimerini that it

could fairly be said that the 2004 Olympic Games played their part (in

Greeces debt crisis). If you look at the external debt of Greece, there

would be up to two or three per cent of that which could be attributed to

the Games.During the 2010 Commonwealth Games, he had informed thrilled

Indians that the country had set a good foundation stone for the Olympics

bid. Rogge said with a straight face: a successful Commonwealth Games

can help India mount a serious bid for the Olympics.

One of the most bandied about catch phrases by the mega-event

PR machine is the legacy left by the mega-event. The idea of legacy

itself is left rusting around host cities and countries.

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Beijing 2008 were the most expensive games costing around

$40 billion, but the stadiums once called modern architectural marvels

are now struggling to keep themselves sustainable and relevant. Two

years later, South Africa spent $5.5 billion on staging the World Cup

and finds its new stadiums, particularly in rural Polokwane and

Nelspruit, far too large for towns without teams playing in the

countrys top flight domestic league.

In the runup to London 2012, Reuters photographers produceda slideshow called Ghosts of Olympics past to indicate the desolation of

sports venues that had not so long ago hosted the worlds best athletes.

Debates of the sustainability of the 2010 projects were met

with negative reports after the Commonwealth Games. Its top three

officials went to jail under corruption charges and rather than create asurge in Indian sport, India was suspended by the International

Olympic Committee in December 2012.

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London 2012 was meant to be a green, sensible-new-millennium

kind of games. The general do-gooderness of the 2012 master plan even

prompted a BBC TV show called TwentyTwelve centered around the

Games deliverance team, including a Head of Sustainability with a

catch phrase: Sustainability is not the same as legacy. It is not.

Yet in April 2012, Britains National Audit Office said that

public sector funding of London 2012 tripled while private sector

contributions had dwindled to 2% of the total bill, 11 billion. Its postGames report (pdf) billed the public sector funding package at over 9.2

billion, with more than 500 million spent on security. The private firm

given the security contract threw up its hands months before the Games,

and fessed up that they couldnt supply the personnel.

In these woeful examples lie echoes of what could well beBrazils future. The protests are merely an early response to what lies

ahead (without the BBC jokes). Brazil in fact ended up being the only

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bidder for 2014 World Cup after Colombia backed out in 2007. Brazils then-

sports minister Orlando Silva had promised that stadium construction and

renovation wouldnt cost the public.

Seven years later, Brazilians will have to pay more than 90%. With

the recent history of mega events in mind, that was an almost predictable

deceit.

Twelve stadiums are being either newly constructed or renovated for

2014. Brasilia, whose football team attracts no more than a few hundred fans,will be given a 71,000-seater. Cuiaba and Manaus, which like Brasilia do not

have local clubs that feature in the top two tiers of the domestic league, will

suddenly have stadiums that can fit in 40,000 ghost spectators.

The stadium in Fortaleza, the fifth most unequal city in the world

according to the UN, will cost more than $220 million to be renovated andmore than 5,000 people have already been moved. A local resident told the

Guardian that people were asking, Who is the World Cup for? A political

scientist called it the theatre of the authorities.

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In the developing world, the mega-event has been turned by the

organizers into bread and circus metaphor that Roman poet Juvenalrued over almost 2,000 years ago. Except Brazil reminds us that even

bread is not so much of a given any more.

Analyzing mega-events, a business professor once said, One

must balance the questions of improving the daily livelihood of thecommon man with the so-called national prestige that only the

pampered urban elite care about. Only his name tells us the event he

was referring to. It doesnt matter though. Rajesh Chakrabarti of the

Indian School of Business in Hyderabad could have been talking about

Brazil 2014 and Rio 2016.

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