For 10 days, the World Cup has been captivating the globe. Widely considered the greatest event in sports, fans have been riveted by the daily matches from South Africa featuring soccer legends like Lionel Messi from Argentina, Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal and Wayne Rooney of England. But while the players make the “Beautiful Game” look effortless, the preparation to ready the country for this tournament of 32 nations was anything but.
Building stadiums, improving transportation infrastructure and ensuring security took a Herculean effort in a country that escaped Apartheid just 16 years ago and, even today, struggles to overcome societal ills including a 25% unemployment rate, some 50 murders per day and a population where 11% of South Africa’s nearly 50 million citizens live with HIV.
Munich Re, for example, was brought in to aid construction of a new high-speed rail project.
The rail link was planned and approved long before South Africa was awarded the World Cup. However, there is no doubt that the World Cup speeded up the construction project, which was started in 2006.
Munich Re was also involved in the mammoth upgrade of “Soccer City,” the Johannesburg stadium that is the nation’s crown jewel for this year’s World Cup. (See video below for more on the renovation.)
February 2007 saw the beginning of stadium renovation, which was covered by way of a CAR policy. The stadium, renovated at a cost of 300 million pounds and ten million working hours, will host the opening ceremony, the opening game and the tournament final. Its new design takes its inspiration from traditional African pottery and resembles a calabash. The renovation work, completed in October 2009, increased Soccer City’s capacity from 80,000 to 94,000, making it the biggest stadium in Africa.
Additionally, Munich Re insured the construction of at least two other stadiums that were built from the ground up for the World Cup.
Then, of course, comes coverage for the games themselves. In all, some $9 billion in insurance was taken out before the games, most of which covered property, game cancellation, broadcast failure and liability issues.
That’s just for the games themselves. Lloyd’s turned to Chris Nash, an underwriter at Sportscover, for some additional input on the “vast range of potential coverage.” He rattled off a list that includes competitions, offers, prizes, sponsorships, and broadcast rights. “It’s impossible to know how many there are, but all companies with these financial implications need coverage,” he explained. “When you take this into account along with the number of broadcasters around the world airing the games, I’d probably estimate the whole thing at around £3 billion [$4.33 billion].”
What it all comes down to is that, for all companies involved in this year’s World Cup, there is a lot more than goals, trophies and international bragging rights on the line. They stand to make — or lose — millions depending on how the tournament plays out.
The last time the World Cup was canceled was World War II. These days, the business of sports is much bigger, and so are the potential losses.
Between the opening ceremony for the 2010 World Cup on June 11 and the presentation of the trophy a month later, almost 100 hours of live soccer is being broadcast around the world. Soccer federation FIFA earned $2.7 billion in total from the broadcast rights at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, according to FIFA’s figures.
FIFA said it took out an insurance policy to provide coverage of $650 million in the event of the postponement or relocation of the games. This policy covered acts of terrorism, natural disaster, epidemics, war and accidents. Munich Re’s share of this policy is the largest at $350 million.
Though the worst threats have been avoided so far, the very first week did provide cause for concern, as striking employees from a private security firm hired to protect a stadium in Cape Town clashed with local law enforcement on June 17.
Police in Cape Town fired a stun grenade and rubber bullets to break up a protest Thursday of more than a hundred private guards who had been hired to provide security at a World Cup soccer stadium.
The clash was the latest incident involving employees of Stallion Security Consortium, whose employees were replaced by police officers at four stadiums around the country after the workers walked off the job in a pay dispute with their employer.
Although the labor dispute hasn’t affected the World Cup games, the incidents highlight simmering tensions in a country where many workers remain poorly paid and unemployment is about 25%. State power company Eskom is in the midst of negotiations to avoid a pay strike that could disrupt electricity supplies. A three-week strike over wages last month paralyzed the country’s ports and freight rail.
Fortunately, security has still largely been maintained throughout the country since the tournament began and the worst fears of many have not been realized, despite this first scare. Let’s hope it is also the last.
A video showing the transformation of Soccer City in Johannesburg into the largest, most iconic stadium in Africa.
