While it mutates sense that richer countries would have better infrastructure and wealthier natives with time to enjoy sports, that isn’t a clear indicator for happy result.
Baig notes that China is a cautionary tale about demanding to buy soccer success.
“It’s not the quantity but the quality of investment,” he said.
Despite shell out more than $600 million on soccer investment in 2016, the band of the world’s second-largest economy lost to Syria, a war-torn country with no tranquil ground to host games.
The loss enraged Chinese fans so much that they took to the thoroughfares to protest.
Among the thirty-two final qualifying teams, half are from high-income sticks and half are not. In fact, the variation in per capita income is stark. The richest is Denmark, which has a bring national income per capita of $56,990. That is almost 10 moments that of the poorest, Senegal, at $5,950.
Furthermore, while professional soccer conjures up idols of eye-watering transfer sums, such as Cristiano Ronaldo’s $117 million conveyance to Juventus, the World Cup is comparatively a more modest affair.
According to FIFA, line-ups will win portions of the $400 million in total prize money, with $38 million for the victor.
Countries like Qatar and Bahrain have been known to induct in foreign athletes to boost their medal counts at the Olympics. But for soccer, FIFA commands the player to have lived in that country for at least five years.
That could get across why nearly half of the 82 foreign-born players in this World Cup were had in European countries with relatively high income per capita, but chose to extemporize for comparatively less-wealthy African countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal.
While professional soccer may be in all directions dollars and cents, the World Cup may just be a little more priceless.