Sport events said good for economy, and then falls apart to the end of economy

Athens Greece in 2004 – and now what?

What do Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup games Really mean to a country´s economy. What happens when all is no longer needed. A huge football ”Arena da Amazonia” was built in the Brazilian Amazonas while people starved, and now will become something else after the world cup. They simply don’t have the population to fill the stadium with football fans, enough to pay for it standing there for football. And the same in South Africa, Football stadiums in odd areas where people really don’t need it, and wont use it, and people still starv and live in shitty housing, and economy said to be a bolster for its economy – right. We all wanted the olympic games to come to Athens, Greece in 2004. And today? Ho does it look today. Are they all in use and with a vibrant economy built upon the success of the stadiums that were built? You be the judge. Here some pictures and an article´s you can read. A good read.

Images: Olympic Stadiums in Athens , Greece in basically ruins>
Article about the stadiums, Athens Greece, in the Business Insider >
The Daily Mail in 2008 already and only 4 years after wrote this piece. >

The Guardian: Football stadiums Brazil World Cup Amazonas >
South Africa: Article BBC> The Globe and Mail> >

And now when the Brazil Football World Cup 2014 is to an end, Brazilian and international media is preparing themselves again – this time for the Brazil Rio De Janeiro Olympic Games: Rio 2016. South Africa Football World Cup cost South Africa a staggering $3.5 billion. They now have good infrastructure which most South Africans are said to not have access too. And football stadiums now said to be White Elephants. Standing there to almost no use. And FIFA, that world body of football probably made a HUGE success with lots of money into many people’s pockets by means we don’t like to know, or actually like to know. And FIFA who are so big it is said FIFA demanded to be free from taxes in Brazil 2014, and said to have been accepted by Brazil. I say said because whom am I to actually know. Mostly those who do know as responsible never talk straight and honest, do they.

Media made brutally honest portraits of the corruption and disgrace involved in the Russian Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. But not enough. Sochi the most expensive olympics ever: not much happened – part from the fact that when the Paralympics started, the Russians started the war situation in Ukraine & Crimea. At the same time of that war situation Brazil´s government were in the running up to the premier of the hugely expensive world cup in Brazil 2014. While people in Brazilian favelas starved, and demonstrations raged. Difference between Brazil and Russia is of course that the Brazilian people could demonstrate somewhat, while the Russians really couldn’t.

Russian Olympics, Sochi >
”Sochi Olympics a ’monstrous scam’ – Russian opposition” BBC >
The Guardian: ”The Costliest Olympic, Sochi” >

And so it goes. On and on.

Stefan Lindblad
Illustrator, artist & graphic designer