| THE WORLD CUP HISTORY
The firstWorldCupwas held in Uruguay in 1930, and
with the exception of the inter-war years from 1938 to
1950, it has been successfully held every four years
since 1930.
Past winners can be seen in the table below.
Following France’s victory in 1998, there are now
seven countries that have won the World Cup, three
from South America and now four from Europe.
Brazil have won the trophy four times – more than
any other country,with Germany and Italy winning it
three times each.
Argentina and Uruguay have both won it twice, with
England and France only once.
The fancied winners for 2002 not surprisingly come
from past winners, with other competitors very much
outsiders. Argentina and France are the favourites
according to bookmakers in the UK.
Two intriguing facts about the 2002 competition are
that no team from outside Europe or Latin America
has ever won the competition, and also no team has
everwon it outside their own continent except Brazil
with their 1958 victory in Sweden. This adds an
element of unpredictability to the 2002 competition,
especially given the local conditions that the
favoured teams from Europe and Latin America will
have to get accustomed to. Very fewfootballers will
have experienced life in Asia and in addition to the
summer humidity, the distance from home might be
a relevant factor for some players (the different time
zone makes for difficult sleeping arrangements!)
As for the challenge from less favoured countries,
host nations have often thrown up strong
performances, and indeed as can be seen in the table,
six host nations have won the tournament, 37.5% of
the sixteen past competitions. This fact should be an
extra incentive to this year’s joint hosts, Korea and
Japan, although it will be a truly incredible
achievement if either were to succeed.
There are the same number of finalists as 1998 - 32
teams, initially divided into 8 groups of 4. Each team
plays the others in their group with the two top teams
then progressing to the next stage, which will be a
knock out. These 8 winners will then progress to the quarter finals, the four winners of which will then
compete in the semi-finals, with the final to be played
on 30 June in Yokohama, Japan and the 3rd vs 4th
playoff on 29 June in Daegu, Korea.
All in all, 64 matches will be played in 20 different
cities in South Korea and Japan, with the world’s
major TV stations giving saturation coverage.
This is a huge difference from the first tournament in
1930,whenjust12teamscompetedinUruguaywith the
four European entrants, Belgium, France, Romania and
Yugoslavia taking 3 weeks to arrive by boat!
The increasing sophistication and commercialisation
of football explains the novel choice of co-hosting
between Korea and Japan. Indeed, the choice of host
has taken on a massive economic and social aspect,
with enormous debate about the choice for the 2006
hosts, Germany. South Africa was widely expected
to be awarded the competition, but some tactical
voting by FIFA participants (the body of world
football) resulted in amore conventional choice.
Following the arguments surrounding the 2006
choice, FIFAare under pressure tomake South Africa
the automatic choice for 2010, and also to specify a
defined pattern, alternating every other tournament
between Europe and Latin America. Another
suggestion which fluctuates in terms of popularity is
to consider shifting the frequency of theWorldCupto
every 2 years instead of the current 4 years, a shift that
would be very controversial in the eyes of lovers of
other sports, notably athletics.
Given that this is the firstWorld Cup being hosted in
Asia, the world’s business community will take as
much interest as supporters given the potential
benefits from advertising and sponsorships. More
than half of the world’s population is in Asia, with
China and India having a combined population of 2.1
billion alone. Success involving local players will
have a lasting impact.
It will be interesting to see the post World Cup
transfer activities of Europe’s top wealthy club
teams. Since the 1998 Finals, it has become a popular
belief that the clubs and players have bled the game’s
finances as much as possible. Unless the 2002
competition can inject a fresh ‘theme’ to stimulate
media rights inside and outside Europe or a dramatic
boost to replica shirt sales or some completely new
concept, the leading clubs are likely to be less
frivolous going forward, regardless of the actual
winners of this trophy.
No doubt, the leading thinkers of FIFA and other
creative business people will be working overtime to
develop a fresh angle, while most supporters will be
interested in trying to spot the next Pele, Beckenbauer,
Cruyff, Maradona or Zidane to emerge.
ECONOMICS & FOOTBALL
In 1998 when we examined this issue, we showed a
rather ‘tongue in cheek’ analysis of the correlation
between football and economics and we have
developed this theme further.
One of the more intriguing aspects of football is
that quite a few of the world’s wealthiest nations
are not successful at the game. Within the G7,
neither the US nor Japan have any global influence
as yet despite clear evidence of the sport’s
increased popularity over the past decade and the
transfer of professional players from both
countries to Europe. Within Europe, Switzerland
is a relatively unsuccessful soccer nation compared
with its GNP per capita.
On the other hand, the most prosperous European
nations, England, France, Germany and Italy are the
most successful football countries.
The latest FIFA global rankings show a very loose
pattern of correlation withGNPcapita, with the more
successful nations within Europe and Latin America
also the most prosperous.
FIFA RANKINGS AND WORLD GDP PER
CAPITA
It might be argued that the correlation between
economic and football success is on the rise.
Despite what was noted earlier about Japan and the
US, this years finals will include representative teams
from six of the G7 countries. Only Canada and India
are omitted from the world’s top 10 economies, and
nations representing some 84% of the world’s GDP
will be competing, probably a bigger proportion than at anytime previously.
In terms of GDP and population, Europe and the
Americas are clearly well represented, and with
China, Korea and Japan competing, Asia’s
representation is much bigger than in the past.
Anagging doubt amongst the football ‘purists’ is that
the ease of entry to the finals has been shifted in order
to accommodate more regions, both in terms of
populous and especially wealth. Surely a valid
answer could be that unless these ‘new’ countries can
get access to the table at the highest levels then their
ability to develop football further will be severely
limited. Presumably the cleanest test will be success
on the field in Korea and Japan!
As far as our thinking about the world economy is
concerned, the evidence is reasonably strong that
the world economy and football are moving in the
same direction. Late in 2000, we published a
global economics paper entitled ‘Building Better
Global Economic BRICs’ (Global Paper Number
66) in which we argued that the coming decade
would see continued rapid growth in Brazil,
Russia, India and China relative to the G7; and
consequently for better global economic
management, the G7 needs to be reformed in order
to accommodate these four countries. Given that
Brazil and Russia are two ‘serious’ footballing
countries, if the world’s economic leadership goes
this way, it would be a positive sign of economic
and football correlation!
INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL SUCCESS AND
FOOTBALL
Given the better performance of the Japanese stock
market in 2002, no doubt many will be enthusiasts of
the idea that the World Cup will help rescue Japan
from its long economic slump!
According to a Financial Times story of December
21st last year, HSBC published an analysis showing
that the stock markets of the developed countries
which have won the World Cup since 1966 have
outperformed global indices by 9%. What this
analysis may not have revealed is that three of the
five winners, England, Germany and France all
won on their home territory which could have
meant that it was the construction of new stadiums
and related preparation that led to a better
perception of economic fortunes rather than the
eventual victory.The performance of the major markets in the run up to
the tournament would appear to suggest some are
having a rethink however. Perhaps Korea will not be
the 2002 competition winner!
According to the same FT story, an independent
Japanese research report has suggested that if Japan
were to win the World Cup, the economy would be
boosted by ¥1,604bn. This is not a trivial amount,
although somewhat less than a more likely fresh
stimulative package from the Japanese Government
to help the public get over the disappointment of
failure this summer.
A separate report from Dentsu Inc, a leading
Japanese advertising company, claims that theWorld
Cup might result in an economic stimulus of ¥3.0trn,
and if Japan wins, they estimate it to be worth just
over ¥3.5trn, not far off 1% of GDP.
As for Korea, its World Cup organising committee
has apparently forecast that simply hosting the
tournament will result in a KRW8.8trn windfall and
create 350,000 jobs.
Looking at the past 12-months year-on-year
performance of major stock markets, perhaps this is
more evidence that football is a major coincident or
slightly leading indicator of economic activity.
the 2002 competition winner!
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