Stop race for sports meets to gain fame
Recent years have seen some local governments desperate to host big sports events. But many of them have ended up wasting valuable resources, time and money without getting the desired results, says an article in The Beijing News. Excerpts:
There seems to be a widespread belief that holding a sports event raises the image of a city and attracts investment. Some small and medium-sized cities across the country have reportedly been trying desperately to hold national or international sports competitions. A series of competitions have already been held in Liuzhou, Luohe, Changzhou, Sanya and Foshan this year.
Most of these cities hosted the events because its authorities thought the "wide public attention" and "wide publicity" would make them famous overnight.
The fact is, it's hard for a city to attract investment and boost its GDP growth by trying to gain fame through sports events. A city has to improve its administration and infrastructure, too, to become a successful investment and economic center.
But most cities overstress the benefits of hosting a sports event and tend to overlook their negative effects. Actually, hosting top-level sports events is a great challenge for a city because it has to upgrade its services, improve its infrastructure, strengthen its security system and raise the level of enthusiasm among its people.
Where will officials of a city with a population of just several hundred thousand get enough people to fill up a giant stadium even for a big sports event? This shows why small cities are not suited to playing host to big sport competitions.
Besides, instead of getting the publicity they had expected, many of the cities imposed a big burden on local public funds. And even in affluent local governments, every empty gymnasium or stadium is nothing more than a colossal waste of money.
(China Daily 11/27/2009 page9)
