Indonesian Bid To Host World Cup The Jakarta Post, Monday, February 2, 2009
I am commenting on the Indonesian desire to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022. I'd sincerely welcome it if Indonesia could host the World Cup. Yet, I've my doubts. Let's see what the last three World Cup hosts could offer in comparison to Indonesia. France, Japan/South Korea and Germany are all blessed with very good infrastructure, which is very important for any country to host the World Cup. How is infrastructure in Indonesia? Although marked on any newer city map and advertised by real estate agents for their projects, all we can see of the monorail so far are some steel bars, which are already rusting due to a lack of usage. Yet Indonesia could benefit greatly from better infrastructure! Not just that the air might clear up (and so would traffic), it would also lure more investors to Indonesia, not to mention opportunities for tourism. On the plus side, Indonesia has proven that they can host a big sport event with the Asian Cup Final. I think the greatest danger is that Indonesian politicians will once again overestimate themselves and act naive in an attempt to try to prove that they're eye to eye with the other G20 countries. But if you look at the other World Cup hosts from developing (or former developing) countries, like Mexico, Brazil or Argentina, you can see the differences in their political environment and infrastructure. If money is the problem, I'm sure that potential big spenders like the Salim Group, Sinar Mas, Sampoerna or the Bakrie conglomerate might find it interesting to sponsor such an event, regarding the business opportunities it might get in response. Indonesia should wake up now and see this as a great opportunity to show itself and the world of what it's capable of. Success would be rewarded greatly, or they'll fail due to the same old petty problems and they would prove to the world once again that it takes more than a high GDP to be a world-class country. Lironicus Sch*naich, Germany Source: THE JAKARTA POST URL: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/02/02/letter-indonesian-bid-host-world-cup.html Apakah saya bisa menurunkan berat badan? Temukan jawabannya di Yahoo! Answers! http://id.answers.yahoo.com
