迪尔玛•罗塞芙(Dilma Rousseff)当选为巴西总统之后，应该会坐上专机，出访南非贫穷小城内尔斯普雷特(Nelspruit)。在那儿，她会看到刚刚举办过世界杯的足球场馆。世界杯后，该场馆几乎没有再使用过，对周围贫民窟的居民也没啥大用处。从内尔斯普雷特，罗塞芙会接着飞往开普敦(Cape Town)，参观毗邻大西洋的那座宏伟壮观的新体育场，如今它也闲置着。而号称要经营30年的那家公司也刚刚撤销了合同，主要原因是开普敦并不需要另一座体育场馆。
而后，罗塞芙可能飞回巴西，对其任期内倍受瞩目盛事的相关计划进行修改：2014年巴西世界杯。巴西能从南非的诸多错误中吸取教训，意欲申办2018年与2022年世界杯的国家也是如此（具体申办国将在12月2日选出，除非新近爆发的丑闻延缓最终投票）。主办国必须要理解世界杯的准确含义：就是一场盛宴。世界杯后，除了盛宴后的宿醉、美好的回忆以及巨额开支外，别无所剩。
南非政府也宣称经济收益会不间断。世界杯期间，我在约翰内斯堡(Johannesburg)用早餐时，邂逅了奥兰多•席尔瓦(Orlando Silva Jr) ，这位风度翩翩的巴西体育部长说起话来也是“假、大、空”。“我认为世界杯会加速南非本地的基础设施建设，我们巴西也会遵循同样的发展路径，”他一脸轻松地说，，对经济规律置若罔闻。
巴西如今正在为2014年世界杯兴建机场、公路和港口。这些都是于国于民的好事，但不应该只与世界杯挂钩。如果真需要一座新机场，直接建就是了。但如果只为四场球赛而去兴建一座新机场，则真大可不必。足球赛与日常生活的需求很少殊途同归。
巴西官员应该早就明了这一点。今年6月一个寒冷的星期六，几十位巴西到访官员来到约翰内斯堡某工地，南非官员向他们诉说举办世界杯的酸甜苦辣——正如南非某官员所说的，“倒的都是我们的辛酸事”。
而巴西民众大都兴高采烈，专程去南非“取经”的官员也是如此。但他们听到了让人透心凉的许多事。也许最扫兴的话来自某女性官员，我不愿说出她的名字，以免她招惹麻烦。她是豪登省(Gauteng)的高级官员，约翰内斯堡就坐落于该省。
她告诉巴西取经者：早在2009年初，她对世界杯如何提振其所在的豪登省经济的相关预测作了全面评估。她到处找寻相关数据——但几乎一无所获。
南非一直说世界杯会促进旅游、创造就业以及兴建惠及民生的基础设施等等。但该女性官员终于明白：“世界杯并不会给南非人民带来实惠，而政府却一直在向民众灌迷魂汤。”没错，约翰内斯堡陈旧落后的交通系统会略微得到改善，但这“不会如我们原先想象得那样明显”。因此在世界杯开幕前一年多的时间，豪登省就已悄悄地打消了世界杯是“聚宝盆”的念想。奇怪的是，政府官员并未告知南非民众，再说管理一个省的大小事够人忙活的了。据预测，南非世界杯会大大超出预算，而且吸引的出手阔绰的游客屈指可数。我最近收到南非某大学官员的一封电子邮件，提到大学为9.2万人次的球迷预留了床位。该官员说，就在世界杯开幕前，国际足联(Fifa)的订票机构反馈说有9.1万个床位的预订最终未能兑现。“我们现在还在想办法甩卖掉多余的床单，而这是原先要求我们必须购置的，”该官员抱怨道。如果这些体育方面的经济专家说的都是事实，世界杯就不会提振南非未来的旅游业，也不能吸引外国资本前来投资。
巴西人应该会尽情享受世界杯，但应准确地定位为一场盛宴。盛宴就得尽情玩乐，但那需要真金白银。没人说，“我要举办一次生日聚会，并且要狂赚一把。”从经济角度说，世界杯就是在巴西人之间进行经济“乾坤大挪移”：从纳税人手中转至足球俱乐部（它们会兴建光彩夺目的新体育场馆）那里，从女人身上（通常对足球不太痴迷）转移到男人手中（更为痴迷）。对于有幸负责兴建体育场馆的建筑公司来说，世界杯还能让它们分得一杯羹，而对于贫民窟的居民来说实惠着实有限。
巴西必须降低开支。至少它并未步南非后尘：一再拖延体育场馆建设以及面对国际足联的狮子开口低三下四。一位巴西足联的助手告诉我：与国际足球界的这位老大谈判很是艰难。对日进斗金的“画饼”，巴西政府看来比南非政府要老到得多，没被忽悠晕。甚至席尔瓦也承认巴西国民正就举办世界杯的所谓好处展开激辩。他说，“这么说吧，幸运的是巴西民众保持了洞察秋毫的警觉。”
事情就应该这样。正如那位来自豪登省的女性官员告诉来访者：“我们犯了很多错误，衷心希望你们不要重蹈覆辙。“巴西应该牢记内尔斯普鲁特贫民窟旁边那座空荡荡的体育场，还有堆积如山未曾用过的亚麻布床单。”
（译者/常和）
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001035390
On Sunday Dilma Rousseff will probably be voted president of Brazil. Soon afterwards she should get on her plane and visit the poor South African town of Nelspruit. There she will see the football stadium built for the recent World Cup. It’s barely played in any more, and isn’t much use to the surrounding slum-dwellers. From Nelspruit Rousseff can fly to Cape Town and view the magnificent new stadium beside the Atlantic. That one’s now redundant too. The company supposed to operate it for 30 years just pulled out of the deal, largely because Cape Town doesn’t need another stadium.
Then Rousseff can fly home and revise plans for what should be the most high-profile event of her reign: Brazil’s World Cup of 2014. Brazil can learn from South Africa’s mistakes. So can the countries bidding to host the World Cups of 2018 and 2022. (The winners will be chosen on December 2, unless scandals delay the vote.) Hosts need to understand what a World Cup is: a party. It leaves nothing behind except a hangover, good memories and a large bill.
Every host of a World Cup or Olympics ritually claims that the tournament will be “an economic bonanza”. South Africa said this nonstop, and Orlando Silva Jr, Brazil’s charming sports minister, made the usual noises when I caught him over breakfast in Johannesburg during the last World Cup. “I guess that the Cup has been a stimulus for developing infrastructure here, and we will follow the same path in Brazil,” he said, in blithe defiance of the pile of academic studies that find no economic benefit from sports tournaments.
Brazil is building airports, roads and ports for 2014. These are fine things, but they shouldn’t be pegged to a World Cup. If you need a new airport, build it. If you only need a new airport for four football matches, don’t build it. The demands of a football tournament are seldom those of daily life.
Brazilian officials should know this already. One chilly winter’s Saturday in Johannesburg this June, dozens of them came to a workshop where South African officials told them about hosting – about, as one South African said, “some of our cuts and bruises”.
The Brazilians were mostly cheery, as befits officials making a “study visit” to a World Cup. But they heard chilling things. Perhaps the most chilling came from a woman whom I won’t name, to keep her out of trouble. She’s a senior official for Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg.
She told the Brazilians how, in early 2009, she had reviewed the projected economic boost the tournament would bring her province. She looked for numbers – and found almost nothing.
South Africa had been saying the tournament would increase tourism, create jobs, build useful infrastructure, etc. But she realised: “It wasn’t going to be giving us the benefits that we had told the country the World Cup was going to give us.” True, Johannesburg’s creaky transport links would improve a bit, but “it wasn’t as much as we had thought”. And so, over a year before kickoff, Gauteng quietly binned hopes of economic bonanza. Somehow the officials forgot to tell the South African people, but then running a province keeps you busy. In the event, predictably, the tournament went well over budget, and attracted few big-spending visitors. I recently got an e-mail from an official at one South African university, which had reserved 92,000 “bed-nights” for football visitors. Shortly before the tournament began, he says, Fifa’s booking agency returned 91,000 nights unused. “We are still trying to sell off the additional linen we had to purchase,” the official complains. If sports economists are right, the Cup won’t boost future tourism and foreign investment in South Africa either.
Brazil should enjoy its World Cup. However, it should view it strictly as a party. A party is fun, but costs money. Nobody says, “I’ll have a birthday party, and I’ll turn a big profit.” Economically, the tournament will entail transfers from some Brazilians to others: from taxpayers to football clubs, which will get shiny new stadiums, and from women (generally not so keen on football) to men (more keen). The tournament could also be a nice little earner for anyone who happens to own a stadium-building company. It won’t do much for slum-dwellers.
Brazil needs to keep costs down. At least it hasn’t copied South Africa’s strategy of rolling over and giving Fifa anything it wants. One Brazilian aide told me about tough negotiations with the global football authority. Nor does Brazil appear as naive about the fabled bonanza as South Africa was. Even Silva admitted that Brazilians were fiercely debating the benefits of hosting. “OK, fine,” he said. “The good thing is that Brazilian public opinion is astute.”
It needs to be. As that woman from Gauteng told her visitors: “There are a lot of mistakes we made that you hopefully won’t make.” Brazil should remember the empty stadium beside the Nelspruit slums, and that unused mountain of university linen.
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