In a mid-May meeting with sports journalists, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff used a local metaphor to say that once the World Cup began, Brazilians would forget their worries. “Once the jaguar drinks the water,” she said, “this country will go crazy.”
在5月中旬与体育记者的会面当中，巴西总统迪尔玛o罗塞夫（Dilma Rousseff）引用了一个当地的比喻，她说：“一旦美洲豹开始喝水，这个国家就会为之疯狂。”意思是说世界杯一开始，巴西人就会将烦恼抛之脑后。
That Dilma (as she is known) hopes that the local populace will get swept up in the spectacle is understandable, considering the protests she’s endured over her government’s spending on the event.
迪尔玛（人们经常以她的名来称呼她）寄希望于用这场盛大的赛事来俘获巴西人民的心，这一点是可以理解的，因为反对本届政府在世界杯方面花费过高的抗议活动让她头疼不已。
At the opening ceremony for the Confederations Cup soccer tournament in Brasilia last June, Dilma and Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, which runs the World Cup, were booed by protesters demanding better education, healthcare, and transportation.
在去年6月举行的联合会杯足球锦标赛开幕仪式上，迪尔玛和国际足联（世界杯运营方）主席瑟普o布拉特（Sepp Blatter）遭到了反对人士的狂嘘，因为这些人要求政府把钱花在改善教育、医疗和交通服务方面。
This May, demonstrators angry that the country was spending money on new stadiums — whose estimated costs have risen by half since 2010, to $3.5 billion — instead of low-income housing held another wave of protests in 18 Brazilian cities. Some held banners saying, “FIFA go home.”
今年5月，抗议者的愤慨引发了巴西另一波大规模游行，涉及18个城市，有些人还打着“国际足联滚回去”的标语。其原因在于国家将钱花在了新体育馆的修建上，而没有用于解决低收入人群的住房问题。新场馆的预计成本自2010年来上升了一半，达到了35亿美元。
Polls taken by the Folha de Sao Paulo show thatsupport for the World Cup has fallen from 79% in 2008 to 48% today.
《圣保罗页报》（Folha de Sao Paulo）举行的民意调查显示，对于世界杯的支持人数已从2008年的79%跌至如今的4%。
Even Brazilian soccer star Pele has begun to complain.
连巴西足球明星贝利（Pele）也开始对此感到忿忿不平。
“It’s clear that, politically speaking, the money spent to build the stadiums was a lot,” he said recently in Mexico City. “Some of this money could have been invested in schools, in hospitals.”
他最近在墨西哥城说：“很明显，从政治上来说，大把的钱都用在了体育馆的修建上。其中有些钱本应投到学校和医院当中。”
If history is any guide, Dilma will get her wish and public discontent will turn into happiness once the first game starts. But that euphoria will pass. And it won’t answer whether spending billions to host a World Cup makes economic sense, especially for a developing country in dire need of basic improvements.
从历史经验来看，一旦第一场赛事开始之后，迪尔玛的愿望便会实现，而且民众的不满情绪也会被愉悦所取代。但是这种幸福感迟早是会烟消云散的。然而对于一个急需改善基本面的发展中国家来说，一时的精神愉悦并不能解答花费数十亿美元举办世界杯是否具有经济意义这个问题。
“World Cups are notoriously bad economic development anchors, particularly in developing countries, and four of the last five hosting countries have lost money,” says John Vrooman, a Vanderbilt University sports economist.
范德堡大学（Vanderbilt University）体育经济学家约翰o弗罗曼（John Vrooman）说：“世界杯是一个臭名昭著、糟糕的经济发展落脚点，对于发展中国家来说尤其如此。在以往的5个举办国中，4个都亏了钱”。南非在举办2010年世界杯后的经历便证明了约翰o弗罗曼的观点。
South Africa’s experience since hosting the 2010 World Cup illustrates Vrooman’s point.
与巴西一样，南非新建和翻修了数家场馆（南非总共10个，巴西12个）。而且，在巴西，多个体育场都分布在没有重要职业球队的城市，因此，世界杯过后这些场馆也就没有职业球队去使用。
Like Brazil, South Africa built and upgraded several stadiums (10 in its case, compared to Brazil’s 12). And, as in Brazil, several were located in cities with no major professional teams to take them on after the Cup.
南非体育记者尼尔o柯林斯（ Neal Collins）表示，“南非为世界杯所修建的大型场馆如今基本上已变成了名副其实的白象（昂贵的摆设）。”
“The great South African stadiums built for the World Cup are largely white elephants now, appropriate given the setting,” says Neal Collins, a sports journalist in South Africa.
夸祖鲁纳塔尔大学（University of KwaZulu-Natal）南非建成环境与开发研究学院教授帕特里克o邦德（Patrick Bond）预计，南非在场馆建设方面花费了25亿美元，因为这些场馆使用率不高，而且每年的维修和运营补贴需要约1800-2400万美元。为了解决“白象”问题，南非的一个工会建议将一个不赚钱的体育馆改为低收入人群住宅。在巴西城市玛瑙斯，一位法官建议在世界杯之后将当地的一座体院馆改成监狱。
Patrick Bond, a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Built Environment and Development Studies in South Africa, estimates that the country spent about $2.5 billion on stadiums that, because they are underused, require some $18-24 million in annual maintenance and operation subsidies.
然而，举办世界杯的好处还是显而易见的。最近，在一篇名为《公共集资的私人收益》的研究中，密歇根大学（University of Michigan）的体育管理教授史蒂芬o斯茨曼斯基（ Stefan Szymanski）和联席作者巴斯蒂安o德拉特（Bastien Drut）发现，世界杯过后的5年时间中，世界杯举办国球队赛事的上座率上升了15-25%；据作者估计，在2014年世界杯后的5个赛季内，巴西俱乐部的收入至少能增加1.82亿美元。
In response to this ‘white elephant’ problem, a South African union proposed turning one unprofitable stadium into low-income housing, while in the Brazilian city of Manaus, a judge has suggested converting a new local stadium into a prison after the tournament.
在另一篇名为《举办世界杯，观众将来自何方？》（If you host it, where will they come from?）的报告中，斯茨曼斯基和联席作者发现，在南非2010年世界杯赛事期间，到访的非邻国游客为20万出头，而当年到访南非的非邻国游客接近50万，分别增长8.1%和18.7%。
Still, there are some clear benefits to holding a World Cup. In a recent study titled, “The private benefit of public funding,” University of Michigan sport management professor Stefan Szymanskiand co-author Bastien Drut found that soccer teams in countries that hosted World Cups saw an increase in attendance of 15-25% in the five years afterwards; the authors estimated that clubs in Brazil would see increased revenues of at least $182 million in the five seasons after the 2014 games.
世界杯也会给个人带来利益。在一篇于世界杯过后发表的报告中，南非政府声称，体育场建设带来了6.6万个工作岗位，创造了9亿多美元的工资收入。
In another recent report titled “If you host it, where will they come from?” Szymanski and his co-authors found that the 2010 World Cup in South Africa attracted a little over 200,000 extra visitors from non-neighboring countries during the tournament, and almost 500,000 during the year, increases of 8.1% and 18.7% respectively.
但是对于那些质疑大修体育场的人士来说，问题并不在于钱，而是在于钱的去处。
There are benefits on an individual scale as well. In apost-World Cup report, the South African government claimed that stadium construction created 66,000 jobs that generated over $900 million in wages.
邦德说：“天知道真正的开销是多少。土地的价值又是多少？还有机会成本呢？如果我们把钱投在住房上，那么动乱可能就会少很多。”
But for those who question the stadium booms, the issue is not the spending, but what it buys.
邦德表示，如果他的祖国少选几座城市，少建几所新场馆，那么就可以打造“一个有更多非洲民众参加的世界杯，而不是一个最赚钱、靠富人和奢华场馆装点的世界杯。”
“Who knows what the figures really were,” says Bond. “What was the value of the land? And what are the opportunity costs? Let’s say we spent that money on housing. We would probably have many fewer riots.”
斯茨曼斯基说，世界杯被看作是一个针对游客的奢华赛事，这种观念才是结症所在。
Bond says that, had his country been content with having fewer new stadiums in fewer cities, it could have created “a more African-scaled World Cup rather than the most profitable World Cup with the richest taking and the most glorious stadiums.”
他说：“世界杯并不在于去体育馆观看。它是一个全球性的电视盛会。与其在最先进的、对国家来说毫无长期效益可言的巨型场馆中举办最为光鲜亮丽的世界杯，倒不如去呼吁将世界杯交由有能力举办世界杯的国家去举办，而且不要求承办国对此进行投资。因为转播权仍是价值连城，而且赞助商仍愿意为此掏腰包。”
Szymanski says that the real problem is the way in which the World Cup is conceived as a luxury event for visitors.
从目前来看，国际足联似乎不大可能放弃其这种声势浩大的竞标模式，因为其目的是为了把世界杯交给那些为推广足球运动而做出最大努力的国家。因此，在国际足联做出改变之前，一切都会照旧。
“The World Cup is not about going to a stadium to watch. It’s a global television spectacle,” he says. “Instead of putting on the most lavish World Cup you could imagine in up-to-date stadiums with huge pieces of infrastructure that have no plausible long-term value to the nation, you need to say we’re going to award it to a country that deserves to host it and we’re not going to require it to invest. The broadcast rights would still be worth a lot of money and sponsors would still pay.”
斯茨曼斯基说：“基本上，每一届世界杯和奥林匹克运动会都会上演同一个故事：最初，在赢得赛事举办权之后，民众对此鼎力支持。接踵而至的是对按期完工的巨大担忧和巨额的成本增加。然后，赛事拉开了帷幕，最后取得了圆满成功，而且也博得了人们的喝彩。然而，几年之后，人们会问，‘我们从中得到了什么？’”