If viable, a well-organized Olympics or World Cup may gain profitability in the following years by handing over renovated or newly built stadiums to the public, therefore allowing the greater populace to enjoy a better infrastructure with slightly more venues than the city could offer before the games. As long-term strategy, various smaller championships will also be invited to the host country in the following decades. Even Olympics barely breaking even or resulting in losses (like London in 2012 or Sydney in 2000) can benefit the population by speeding up development if building up new venues wouldn’t be a feasible venture without the Olympics.
Both English and Australian citizens praise the facts that newly built infrastructure wasn’t simply demolished or let to rot after the Olympics, but local governors successfully utilized them to breathe new life into the cities’ cultural life, and most venues remained under active use and maintenance in the following years and decades.
Let’s compare these with Greece. It has a much lower populace and economic output than the mentioned positive examples, but the country didn’t even try to squeeze out the best from what Olympics can offer. Reports say that 90 percent of the newly erected buildings for the olympics are crumbling, and the country not being able to find new purpose for their surplus infrastructure has met with losses reaching by some estimates $11 billion.
Greece is not even the worst example. Let’s revisit authoritanianism. Under these regimes, leaders simply order their cronies or foreign companies if the former ones don’t own the necessary technology, to erect the required infrastructure from the ground up, where even human lives don’t matter at all, then after the end of ceremonies, they simply let everything rot on their place.
Citizens aren’t invited to partake in organizing the event. They are being told from above who may win the right to gloriously slave away their lives in order to serve them. Poor people will be evicted from the area of the planned venue, slums are walled off from tourists. Somehow, the powers who call themselves socialist or national christian tend to build up a two-tier society where local working populace are being obliged to build up the whole event for the glory of their leader, then they get deprived from the right tho enjoy what they’ve built with their own hands.
In the 2-4 weeks of the event, people flood the streets to celebrate, but after the end the same oppression, misery and depression returns as it was before the Olympic games entered the city. Sports complexes begin to collapse, as local populace don’t have enough money to rent out and put these venues into good use.
Lets cite a few examples of autocracies posing as sport nations.
Soviet-Russia
Soviet Russia sweated blood in 1980 (Moscow Olympics), 2014 (Sochi Winter Olympics), 2018 (Russian World Cup), and then in 2020 (world exhibition, which was finally handed to Dubai instead of Russia) to improve its international reputation. They tried so hard that Putin himself was involved in the promotion of the World Cup and then the world expo. Putin transformed himself from a cold, calculating, novichok-loving KGB agent into a lovable uncle who can’t wait for sporting events to bring people together again.
Following the 2018 parade, FIFA representatives were shocked by the professionalism of the russian organizers (as cost management didn’t matter), then Putin happily declared that the world’s attitude towards Russia has changed forever. Everyone could see with their own eyes how peaceful, safe and hospitable country they are!
However, after the weeks of sentimental magic dissolved, the perception of Russia has not changed at all. Of course, this includes the fact that Putin annexed Crimea right after the Sochi Olympics. We also know what happened during the two years when basically the whole world was shut down: without live audiences, the magical power of community bonding regarding sporting events has completely disappeared. Looking back, it’s obvious that sportswashing is a completely ineffective trick pulled out by autocracies, but it wasn’t a well established fact before the days of COVID.
Despite its Ukrainian invasion, Russia is considering bidding to host the 2036 Olympics and the 2030 World Expo, but given its current affairs, it has as much chance of winning another event as a three-legged hedgehog harmlessly crossing a six-lane highway.
Brazil
Although Brazil is a democratic country, it’s also a hotbed of corruption and gang wars. Both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics were plagued by overbilling issues and budget overruns. Depending on estimate, the Olympics had cost the state 15-25 billion dollars, but only returned 3-5 billion in the form of tickets and selling of broadcasting rights.
While the event was taking place, Brazilian citizens were virtually unable to get to work on time. The commuting time from one end of the city to the other increased to two hours, and public transport passes were given at increased prices during the Olympic games – even for those who were not interested in the Olympics, just wanted to live their own little lives.
The infrastructure was barely completed on time, and its quality was so low that water and electricity were not provided at several locations within the Olympic village. The accommodations were so rudimentary that teams from several nations refused to move in. The quality of seawater, where the swimming and sailing events took place, contained samples of dangerous chemicals, bacteria and viruses in over million times the acceptable range. The cleaning of the beach and its water was not ready for the start, so the Olympians essentially had to swim in wastewater.
The fact that the favela wars continued before, during and after the events, the spread of which, hand in hand with demonstrations against the megalomaniac Olympic Games, was intended to be eliminated through intimidation is just the icing on the cake. The Brazilian police and military have received countless modern handguns, combat vehicles, and even helicopters to intimidate and control the people living in the favelas.
China
Beijing took part in the organization of the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics. In 2010, the most impressive and most expensive world exhibition of all time took place in Shanghai.
China is in a slightly different situation compared to Russia and Brazil. With their population of one and a half billion people, they are in such a position that the country’s economy did not come to a halt despite the skyrocketing costs. Not to mention that there are as many people within the country’s borders that they can pack all the stadiums with spectators themselves, so they are not as desperate to attract foreign tourists as Brazil or Russia, especially Qatar.
In spite of all these, it’s no coincidence that China is the only country ruled by an authoritarian regime which came out positively from the organization of both the Olympic Games and the World Exhibition. Financially, the events made a minimal impact on the country’s budget, and the local population worshiped their nation and the Chinese Communist Party with more fervor than ever before. Lets add to the mix the fact that all their events were made utilizing mesmerizing visuals that have put even the western capitalist organizers to shame.
Of course the local propaganda machine also got its 15 minutes of fame. An Uyghur athlete was chosen as torch bearer for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Uyghurs are China’s muslim minority, whose autonomy is constantly being robbed by the party state. Members of the community are being sent to re-education camps to pledge eternal allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party instead of Allah.
