The World Cup and the Economic Benefits and Drawbacks

Illustration by Clarice Frude for Girls For Business

The most anticipated sports event is undoubtedly the World Cup, which this year is held in Qatar. To understand the economic benefits and drawbacks to the world cup business, there is some background information to be covered. Being the host country of this very important and popular event is seen as a great honor because it provides money from tourism, creates new jobs, and potential for new development. The countries interested in hosting must win the ballots of FIFA (Federation de International Football Association) executive members and beat other countries who are interested in hosting in a bidding. Being the host country has proven to hold great importance, as soccer fans all over the world tune in to watch their country climb the ranks to hopefully be the World Cup champions.

However, this year’s World Cup was quite controversial; it may even be the most controversial yet. Qatar was the first Arabic country to host. It is a very rich country that only occupies 4,416 square miles. Qatar was able to take on this very expensive project in hopes that the benefits it brings to the country will possibly make the spending break even. However, this may not be the case. There is a possibility that Qatar will not make any profit off of the record breaking spending for the World Cup. The investment they put in to make Qatar a more prominent member on the world stage is not paying off. The massive amount of money put into building stadiums, infrastructures, and possibly new hotels for tourists is all in hopes of benefit, but unfortunately may not be the case for Qatar this year. Along with no profit, Qatar has faced backlash. The alleged bribery in the bidding process, violations of human rights for the workers building the infrastructure, and the little soccer history of Qatar are only some of the reasons why this year’s world cup is not very popular.

This idea called “host country” is a business to make more worldwide recognition. The benefits this role brings is the tourism it brings into this event. Tourists also use restaurants and other public locations to boost the economy of Qatar. There are many benefits and drawbacks to the World Cup on the business level that impacts almost the whole world and definitely the people living in Qatar.