No past South African sports event has been subjected to the kind of critical scrutiny that 2010 FIFA World Cup is seeing. Development and Dreams is one of the first volumes to capture a number of thought-provoking discourses on the question: "Will the World Cup be a success?"

The book looks at the economic and social realities of the event, and attempts to answer the question whether the event will be economically successful and have sufficient legacies to be called worth the trouble of hosting it.

Articles by more than a dozen authors are included, making for a diverse and interesting mix of perspectives on the matter. While the book is packed with facts and figures, one can't help sensing that many of the articles are a reflection of the subjective opinions and interpretations of the authors, rather than attempts to put objective research findings on the table.

Some of the articles even run ahead of their conclusions: Margot Rubin's article of the place of women in football is bound to come to an obvious finding about the game: It's (still) a man's game.

The most controversial finding - although also the event's worst kept secret, really - is that the World Cup, like most mega-event's world-wide, will probably not be an overwhelming financial success. On paper any sports event will always show an economic impact to a lesser or greater degree. The problem however is that those benefits are almost always overstated at the outset, and the final numbers more often than not come in lower than expected. Thus, the economic benefit of spending thirty billion Rand on a mega-event versus spending the same money on 15 000 rural sports facilities, or other urgent social needs become a major debating point.

On the positive side the book makes the assertion that the benefits derived from international exposure for the hosting country and a surge in national pride makes the World Cup worthwhile. Social benefits thus outweigh the economic. South Africa, and Africa as a whole will prove itself to be a worthy venue for successful mega-events (provided the World Cup runs without major hitches, of course). In short, in the realm of developing nations South Africa will climb more than a few notches in the world spotlight, especially as far as sport is concerned.

The most interesting time to read Development and Dreams will be in retrospect, once the last international visitor has boarded a plane and gone home. Once all the sums have been made, and the results from the many research projects that will be conducted are in, this book will hold a few lessons in mega-event impact predictions and analyses.


++ Development and Dreams can be downloaded for free from www.hsrcpress.ac.za.