Some observers have argued that Russia should be stripped of the right to organize the FIFA World Cup in 2018. Ukraine’s President Poroshenko on Facebook also seems to support this idea and expressed hope that Sepp Blatter’s resignation as FIFA president might lead to a cancellation of some of FIFA’s earlier decisions.
We at VoxUkraine think differently, however: several economic studies show that organizing such mega events is a poor investment, especially for not so rich countries – see for example the papers by Victor Matheson [3][4] – hence we expect that organizing the World Cup will make Russia economically weaker, not stronger. Organizing mega events thus are like economic sanctions and supporters of Ukraine hence should be sad that Russia only won the second place at the recent Eurovision signing contest. For the same reason, some of us have argued against Ukraine organizing Euro 2012.
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[3] Mega-sporting events in developing nations: playing the way to prosperity?
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