Translating impacts into development: what pointers from scholarship?

Scarlett Cornelissen University of Stellenbosch

The significance of sport mega-events in the contemporary era

The impacts of sport mega-events

• • • • • Well established discourse of potential short-term & long-term gains, and increasingly costs Deliberate ‘science of over- or mis-estimation’ by boosterists and naysayers alike Despite a vibrant and evolving scholarship on impacts & legacies no cogent hypothesis of how impacts translate into development Discourse still privileges ‘hard’ over ‘soft’ infrastructure In fact events pose major challenges to conventional development theory: – large-scale – sectorally focused – concentrated

The impacts of sport mega-events

‘the high concentration implied by the Games in terms of city) and

time

whole society’ (a two-week event),

investment space

(the operating and (one host city only, or even specific areas within the infrastructure costs of the Games are in billions) seems to conflict with the concept of sustainable development, that calls for the distribution and sharing of environmental, social and economic impacts across time and space for spreading benefits and minimising negative effects on the (Frey

et al

, 2007:2)

Translating impacts into development

• • • • • Clear understanding & differentiation between direct, indirect & induced impacts different sectors differentially affected Tourism impacts = time lag before effects discernible – although common failure to adequately profile event tourist – sport tourist has different features Strategic targeting of resources given nature of local host economy incremental approach to sport event hosting – second and third-tier rather than first – gradually build up

FIFA 2010: Planning processes & legacies

• Terrain of planning in SA shaped by four major forces: – initial goals and proposals set out in Bid document – FIFA preferences – incorporation by government of 2010 planning into macro economic objectives (incl. Asgisa) – centring of provincial and urban policies around 2010 infrastructure developments and gearing of resources to tournament • however, rather process of retro-fitting established plans & policies

Legacies?

• Impacts of current infrastructural developments on future urban policy and planning • Sectoral developments – tourism, sport or more durable sport-tourism and event-tourism sectors?

• Football development at grassroots level?

• Unsystematic focus up to this point on ‘soft’ infrastructure & legacies • Tourism: shape & impacts of FIFA tour operator programme