For a large part of my professional career, I explored the links between the beautiful game and the global economy. At Goldman Sachs and, before that, at the Swiss Bank Corporation, I indulged my dual obsessions by presiding over special one-off publications for each World Cup from 1994 until 2010.
I have, to date, managed to attend six World Cups, hosted by the United States, France, South Korea and Japan, Germany, South Africa and Brazil. From these experiences, I can add my voice to those who describe the event as one of the most beautifully inclusive meetings of many different nationalities and cultures. The advent of the Fan Zones, which really took off following the 2006 World Cup in Germany, embodied this spirit, though I experienced it most intensely in Seoul in 2002.
But given many major countries’ inward turn in recent years, are the days of even wanting to host the event numbered? Will aspiring emerging-market countries find it increasingly difficult to succeed in staging the world’s most watched tournament? Or, to the contrary, could the world soon shift back to a more contented, globalising and inclusive international order? One might even ask a deeper question: is Fifa a leading or a lagging indicator of the world economy and the degree of...
In the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2011-20, global real GDP growth averaged, respectively, 3.3%, 3.3%, 3.9%, and 3.7%. The acceleration in the most recent two full decades was clearly due to stronger growth in the emerging world, and it coincides with the period when Fifa began selecting hosts from outside the traditional football strongholds. It currently looks as though this trend could be reversed this decade, even with eight years still to go.
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